What Tiramisu Reveals About Flavour Development

At IXOM, our flavour team have deep experience in creating the balance between technical application, formulation behaviour, and flavours that consumers love. Our expertise is in using familiar flavours to help drive innovation. We understand how a flavour profile behaves across applications, processing conditions, and scale, and how it can be adapted without losing intent.

Classic profiles like tiramisu provide a useful lens for this work.

Familiar Profiles as Development Tools

Tiramisu is a classic for a reason – it finds the perfect balance of flavours: coffee, cocoa, creaminess, and sweetness, with each playing a defined, equal role. That balance makes it a valuable reference point in development conversations.

Our IXOM team use familiar profiles like tiramisu as tools to explore:

• How balance is constructed
• How intensity is controlled
• How performance shifts under different conditions

Having this shared reference point helps align everyone, from R&D teams to product managers, allowing the process to move into more practical next steps:

• Performance in the intended application matrix
• Behaviour under heat, shear, or shelf life
• Aroma release across formats
• Flexibility to adapt for different markets or production requirements

Achieving Balance is a Skill

In flavour development, complexity arises in execution.

A single profile can behave very differently depending on formulation context, processing parameters, and regulatory or commercial constraints. What seems balanced at bench scale may not be at production scale. What works in one application may require adjustment in another.

At IXOM, development is built around anticipating and managing these variables. Balance is tested, adjusted, and maintained at each step of the production process through deliberate formulation choices.

Exploring Variation Within the Familiar

To explore balance in practice, we’ve taken two of many possible development directions, using tiramisu as a familiar reference point to demonstrate how flavour profiles can be adapted to meet different application and customer requirements.

• Cozy, spiced caramel biscuit tiramisu
  This expression leans into warmth and comfort, layering caramelised biscuit richness with gentle aromatic spices. The result is a familiar, rounded, and indulgent profile, with emphasis on depth and mouthfeel.
• Fruity, refreshing limoncello-style tiramisu
  In contrast, this direction explores brightness and lift. Zesty lemon notes bring freshness and vibrancy to the creamy base, shifting the overall perception while retaining the structural balance that characterises tiramisu.

Two distinct moods. Two different profile expressions. Both built on the same classic foundation.

Exercises like this allow us to examine how balance, intensity, and structure can be reinterpreted to suit different concepts, applications, and positioning needs, without losing control of performance.

Development as a Technical, Collaborative Process

Effective flavour development is iterative and collaborative, evolving as a product moves from concept toward commercial reality.

Led by Susan MacDonald, Portfolio Leader for Flavours & Fragrances, the IXOM team works closely with customers across stages of development, recognising that requirements change under testing.

“A familiar profile gives you a starting point, but development is about understanding how that profile behaves as conditions change, and knowing where to adjust without compromising balance.”

We pride ourselves on consistent performance, which depends on technical oversight, portfolio flexibility, and the ability to respond as those changes occur. Iterations are necessary to achieve the best possible outcome.

From Concept Through to Commercialisation

From early concept exploration, through formulation refinement, application testing, and scale-up, we focus on how flavours perform under real-world conditions. IXOM partners with our customers to provide full support as projects progress.

If you’re refining an existing formulation, adapting a familiar profile for a new application, or exploring how a classic flavour can be reinterpreted within different parameters, reach out to our IXOM team here to learn how we can support your flavour challenges.