Mood by Design: A New Patent Advances the Science of Flavor and Feeling 

People don’t experience food and beverages through taste alone. A product can comfort, energize, surprise or reward us. It can feel familiar or adventurous. It can fit the way someone wants to feel in a particular moment — or miss the mark entirely. 

Understanding those connections has long been part of consumer research. But what if product developers could go further than asking people how a product makes them feel? What if science could help identify the relationship between specific ingredients, flavors and emotional or cognitive benefits — and use those insights to help design products with those benefits in mind from the beginning? 

That is the ambition behind IFF Mood Intelligence and its Beyond Hedonics™ capabilities: a connected suite of proprietary research, data and neuroscience tools designed to help uncover not only what people like, but how sensory experiences can connect with how they want to feel. 

And a newly patented IFF methodology is opening new possibilities for putting that science into action. 

A Patent that Changes What BrainEmotions™ Can Do 

The new BrainEmotions™ patent protects an IFF methodology linking ingredients and flavors with brain activity associated with specific emotional and cognitive benefits. 

Put simply, IFF scientists have established relationships between targeted benefits, the brain networks associated with those benefits and the patterns of activity observed when an ingredient or flavor enhances the experience. 

“We patented the method connecting the ingredient with brain activity and our ability to predict the cognitive and emotional benefit of an ingredient through the patented brain network,” explains Kevin Kantono, Intelligence and Data Science Principal Researcher. “That moves the paradigm beyond validation. We can use this much more for screening and prediction.” 

“We patented the method connecting the ingredient with brain activity and our ability to predict the cognitive and emotional benefit of an ingredient through the patented brain network.”

That distinction is important. 

BrainEmotions™ can certainly provide validation — helping demonstrate whether a sensory experience produces the expected neurological response. But the growing body of data behind the methodology creates another possibility: using what IFF already knows to help inform what should be created in the first place. 

In other words, the science can begin moving upstream. 

“We’re not using this tool just to validate. We’re using it to design,” Kevin says. “We already know specific benefits that have been validated through the scientific tools we have. We’re moving from measuring toward proactive design — designing with intention.” 

BrainEmotions™: Looking at the Brain Behind the Experience 

BrainEmotions™ uses neuroimaging and IFF’s scientific methodology to explore how ingredients and flavors connect with specific emotional and cognitive benefits. 

Rather than relying only on what someone subjectively reports, researchers can examine patterns of brain activity associated with targeted benefits. IFF has studied a broad spectrum of emotional and cognitive territories — including benefits that can be difficult to investigate through conventional approaches alone. 

Over time, that research has created a substantial database connecting ingredients, sensory experiences, targeted benefits and corresponding patterns of brain activity. 

According to Anne Besnard, Global Director of Cognitive and Data Science, the scale and connectivity of that science are central to what makes IFF’s approach different. 

“We are serious about being able to provide scientific rationales for what we do,” Anne says. “It’s not science just because we can do it. We want scientific robustness behind the innovation. We now have an entire tool chest supporting Mood Intelligence, and the pieces are connected — we understand the bridges between them.” 

That connectivity allows IFF to zoom out to understand broader emotional territories, then zoom in with highly targeted tools such as neuroimaging when deeper validation is needed. 

And now, a newly granted patent strengthens an important part of that scientific foundation.

Building a Science of Feeling

Today’s food and beverage landscape gives people more choices than ever — and expectations stretch well beyond taste. 

People may look to products for comfort, energy, focus, relaxation, adventure or other emotional and cognitive experiences. That creates a new challenge for product developers: How do you design for something as complex and personal as a feeling? 

IFF’s approach starts by looking at experience from multiple angles. 

Traditional consumer research can tell us what people consciously report about a product. Mood Intelligence extends that understanding through a combination of explicit research, implicit measurement, behavioral science, neuroscience and extensive data — taking factors such as culture, geography and occasion into account along the way. 

“We’re getting better at curating our data and looking beyond simply asking whether people liked something or not,” says Kevin. “We’re looking at multiple layers — the emotional piece, implicit and explicit responses, neuroscience and behavioral measures — while also considering culture, occasion and other factors.” 

The breadth of that toolset matters because no single methodology can tell the entire story. 

As Giuliano Gaeta, Intelligence & Data Science Senior Researcher in Neurosciences, explains, “The variety of tools we can use — and the scientific rigor behind each of them — allows us to make research much more targeted and flexible. We can choose different tools, or combinations of tools, depending on what we’re trying to understand.” 

The result is not simply more data. It is greater convergence between different types of evidence — and a more connected scientific rationale for product design. 

Flavor Feelings™: Mapping the Connections Between Flavor and Emotion 

One foundation of this work is Flavor Feelings™, IFF’s proprietary database exploring explicit relationships between flavors and emotional responses. 

Built from research conducted across different countries and cultures, Flavor Feelings™ helps identify associations between sensory experiences and desired emotions. 

For example, the data may indicate that a particular flavor profile has a strong association with happiness. That gives developers a starting point: an evidence-based understanding of the direction in which a flavor could take the experience.  

But Mood Intelligence doesn’t stop there. 

That is where IFF’s neuroscience capabilities — including BrainEmotions™ — add another layer of evidence. 

Flavor Feelings™ and BrainEmotions™ are complementary rather than interchangeable. One helps identify meaningful flavor-emotion relationships through consumer research and data; the other allows IFF scientists to investigate those relationships at the level of brain activity. 

When those approaches point in the same direction, their convergence can provide powerful evidence for what a sensory experience may deliver.

From Validation to Intentional Design 

Consider a beverage intended to connect with a particular emotional territory. 

Rather than beginning with a flavor concept and asking at the end whether it delivers the intended emotional experience, developers can start with the desired experience itself. 

What does the target audience want to feel? What flavors have demonstrated an association with that territory through Flavor Feelings™? Which ingredients have shown relevant responses through BrainEmotions™? How might culture, market, occasion and application affect those relationships? 

Those insights can then help guide flavorists as they create and refine the product. 

This changes the role of Mood Intelligence from a final checkpoint into a first-stage product design resource. 

And because IFF’s databases span a wide variety of ingredients, benefits, applications and geographies, the approach can be applied broadly — from beverages and dairy to confectionery, culinary products and beyond. 

Giuliano points to four strengths behind that capability: the amount of scientific data supporting the findings, the breadth of applications in which the methodology can be used, the global and geographic dimensions of the research, and the range of choices available to flavorists. 

“If we say an ingredient is connected with a benefit, there is a significant amount of data behind it,” Giuliano says. “And the applicability is very broad. We can support different applications and different markets while taking geography into account. It gives flavorists a wide range of choices.”

“We can support different applications and different markets while taking geography into account. It gives flavorists a wide range of choices.”

Designing for Product Resonance 

For manufacturers, the opportunity extends beyond making a product that tastes good or even one that generates a measurable emotional response. 

It is about product resonance: creating an experience that aligns with how the target audience wants to feel and what the product or brand promises to deliver. 

As Kevin describes it, “Product resonance means asking whether the product aligns with how people want to feel. We want to make sure the flavors we select evoke those feelings and are also aligned with the product and the brand.” 

That alignment can help create a stronger connection between the sensory experience, the intended positioning and the person experiencing it. 

It can also help manufacturers address one of innovation’s perennial challenges: uncertainty. 

Instead of beginning with an almost limitless universe of flavor directions, Mood Intelligence can help narrow the field using existing evidence. Flavor Feelings™ can identify promising territories. BrainEmotions™ can add neurological evidence and predictive screening. Other Beyond Hedonics™ tools can explore the experience from additional perspectives. 

Together, they can give development teams greater confidence in why a particular direction is worth pursuing. 

Opening New White Space 

That confidence matters whether a manufacturer is trying to enter a new space or strengthen an established product. 

Mood Intelligence can help teams investigate emerging emotional territories, identify opportunities for new product experiences or introduce novel twists within familiar categories. And because the approach is not tied to one format, the same underlying science can support innovation across food and beverage applications. 

For Kevin, that can also mean reducing risk. 

“Our Flavor Feelings™ database gives flavorists and designers the opportunity to de-risk innovation because we’re so confident in the accuracy of the data behind it,” he says. “We’re moving from reactive thinking toward proactive thinking — innovating based on what people need.” 

The ultimate shift is simple but significant: start with the desired human experience, then use science to help design toward it.

Where Science Meets Feeling

Mood has historically been one of the harder dimensions of product experience to design around with scientific precision. IFF’s growing Mood Intelligence capabilities are helping change that. 

Flavor Feelings™ provides a broad map of relationships between flavor and emotion. BrainEmotions™ adds another layer by connecting ingredients, benefits and measurable brain activity. Other Beyond Hedonics™ tools provide additional perspectives, allowing researchers and flavorists to select the right combination of approaches for the question at hand. 

The new BrainEmotions™ patent is an important milestone within that larger system — not simply because it protects a methodology, but because of what that methodology makes possible. 

For Anne, it reflects a broader commitment to building Mood Intelligence on rigorous science. 

“We want to ensure scientific robustness — not just something that sounds interesting,” she says. “We are serious about this journey and about being able to provide the scientific rationale behind what we create.” 

For food and beverage manufacturers, that science offers a new way to approach a deceptively simple question: 

What emotional experiences are people looking for, and how can you design food and beverage moments that help deliver them?  

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This is business-to-business information intended for food and supplement producers and is not intended for the final consumer. This information is based on our own research and development work and is, to the best of our knowledge, reliable. However, nothing herein shall constitute a guarantee or warranty with respect to products of IFF or its affiliates or information contained herein and IFF does not assume any liability or risk involved in the use of its products or the information contained herein, as conditions of use are beyond our control. Statements concerning possible use of products of IFF or its affiliates are not to be construed as recommendations for any use which would violate any patent rights, regulations or statutory restrictions. Manufacturers should check local regulatory status of any claims according to the intended use of their product.