Chicago-based Imbibe is claiming significant advance in sweetener technology that can get around flavor barriers of non-nutritive sweeteners like stevia via launch of proprietary SweetSense product that’s designed to optimize sweetness perception in bevs. Natural flavoring agent, developed via Imbibe’s expertise in bev formulation and flavor creation, accentuates inherent sweetness from other ingredients, provides added lift and intensity to characterizing flavors, moderates off-notes and linger that are typical by-products of using natural, non-nutritive sweeteners, and reduces amount of sugar needed to meet taste and mouthfeel requirements by as much as 30%, evp Andy Dratt told BBI. It remains stable thru thermal processing, he said.

New product emerges from co that’s adopted what it styles “contextual” approach to product development, reaching out to commercially available ingredients to create proprietary components and techniques. Imbibe operates out of suburban location in Niles, co includes 4K-sq-ft pilot plant within its 40K sq ft of space, with 30 technical people on payroll, well over half of total. The co doesn’t publicly disclose its clients, it claims particular expertise in challenging areas like low-acid items including protein and dairy alternatives. “The last thing the world needs is another flavor company,” Andy explained in discussion last fall. Co focuses on developing bevs in customized, rapid-iteration process, tho it can create flavors as needed. Including predecessor cos launched by food scientist Sumner Katz, Imbibe’s been in biz 50+ years, tho it tends to fly under radar. Info at ImbibeInc.com.

From Beverage Business Insights Vol 14 No 25