How can artificial flavors like Mango,Grape,Orange,Apple taste somewhat closer of its natural counterpart?

Question

How can artificial flavors like Mango,Grape,Orange,Apple taste somewhat closer of its natural counterpart?

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

A lot of fruit flavours come from chemicals called esters. A fruit will have a lot of different esters, but if you figure out a few of the most important esters that give you the distinct flavour of that particular fruit, and then you recreate those esters in a lab, you get “artificial flavours”. Take a few different esters, add some sugar, add some acidity, and you can find something close enough to a fruit flavour.