Bell Flavors & Fragrances served up its fifth bi-annual Flavorology event to eager participants on May 17th at the Chopping Block in Chicago. Flavorology is a gathering of Bell’s R&D, Application Specialists, Industry Chefs and key customers, to educate new technologies and flavor concepts so Bell’s customers can be successful in delivering market leading products.
Bell’s R&D teams worked in conjunction with each other to achieve maximum innovation. Simon Poppelsdorf, VP of Technical Services stated, “This type of collaborative development allowed for great information exchange between Flavorists and Application staff and different categories such as Savory and Sweet.”
Bell’s showcased ten table tops of innovative new flavored products. Tables included 2013 Trends & Flavors presenting Bell’s 2013 top trend predictions and corresponding flavors. A savory table titled The “Heat” is On showcasing a variety of pepper flavors that Bell has to offer from Aji to Sriracha, and from sweet to heat! Another table called Coffee, It’s Not Just a Beverage Anymore highlighted some of Bell’s innovative uses of coffee flavors as well as flavoring coffee itself. There was also a table called Hold the Gluten featuring products that showed the importance of using flavors in gluten free products, primarily baked goods to improve taste and appeal to customers.
Other Bell table tops highlighted a line of Ice Cream Inclusions specifically designed to showcase Bell’s exceptional flavors in a highly functional delivery system that provides superior mouthfeel and flavor release in each and every bite. Another sweet table top showed Almost 50 Shades of Chocolate.
A savory table created by senior flavorist, Robert Pan, showed a series of cooking processes of savory topnote flavors that can be used as building block flavors. This new line of flavors is natural and has both water and oil soluble versions. This innovative line of flavors shows how Bell is taking its savory capability to the next level.
Beverage tables showed Beverage Flavors from Around the World highlighting South America’s cape gooseberry, Europe’s sea-buckthorn and blackcurrant, South Africa’s marula, Japan’s matcha green tea and southeast Asia’s rambutan flavors. There was also an alcoholic beverage table called Out of Bounds Booze: Potent Potables featuring innovative flavored drinks like butterscotch whiskey, guava gin, mandarin tequila and ‘sweet n sassy’ vodka.
The main excitement of the evening came when the CheFusion™ event began. This was an “Iron Chef” type competition in which eight top industry chefs formed three teams to create state-of-the-art dishes featuring an innovative use of Bell flavors from contrasting world cuisines. The results were as follows:
1st Place Winner Award
Team Newlyweds: Chef Abraham White, Chef Brian Brindza, Chef Eric Nakata & Chef Claire Olsen showed amuse bouche with a play on PB&J with manchego cheese, fig preserve and seasoned ham along with a revised version of surf and turf followed by a bacon whoopee pie and a Manhattan.
2nd Place Winner Award
Team Ed Miniat: Chef John Draz & Chef Jamie Mestan showed a food truck style shawarma dog with a side of Asian BBQ pork loaded fries finished with some prickly pear margarita donut holes and a spicy lemonade.
3rd Place Winner Award
Team Blount Fine Foods: Chef Jeff Wirtz & Chef Benjamin Murray who showed an open faced soft shell crab on pretzel roll with seasoned slaw fresh potato chips and a summer shandy.
