How do companies create flavours like fruits,coffee etc without using actual fruit or coffee?
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Step 1: Use chemistry to isolate and identify a the most dominant flavor compounds in a food. Step 2: Find a way to synthesize these chemicals in bulk, or refine them from much less expensive ingredients. Step 3: Mix the chemicals into the approximate ratio that they’re found in nature, or more often, the least unpalatable ratio, since the artificial ingredients aren’t anywhere as good as the real thing. Step 4: Add it to cheap, low-quality food, and mediate it with lot so sugar, salt, and fat so as to make it appealing in spite of its cruder base flavor profile.
For a simple example, artificial vanilla is made from vanillin, an organic compound found in vanilla beans, but is chemically derived from guaiacol. Guaiacol is produced from the oxidation of lignin, ie: burning wood, and that’s why, for example, aging bourbon in charred oak barrels imparts vanilla flavors to that beverage. However, most vanilla is produced from guaiacol distilled during oil refining (yum).
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