Product Experience

In a world where Health & Wellness is more than just a trend, but a way of life, sodium reduction stands out as a significant challenge for companies worldwide. Sodium has long been celebrated for its ability to enhance flavors, making it an essential element in delivering the taste consumers love.

Yet, reducing sodium without sacrificing flavor remains a delicate balancing act. At IFF, we’re pioneering innovative solutions that meet the demand for lower sodium while preserving the product experience that consumers expect.

Through our expertise in flavor technology, we’re making strides toward a balanced  future—one flavorful solution at a time.

The key insight is that consumers rarely compare a reduced-salt product directly with its full-salt counterpart; instead, they measure it against their memory of past experiences.

With IFF’s newly developed “Magic Moments” approach—an innovative blend of ethnography and sensory dynamic profiling—we’ve pinpointed the critical moments that shape a consumer’s perception of the product.

By linking these moments to specific product attributes, we’re able to drive reformulation that resonates with consumer expectations and elevates their experience.

With this innovative approach, IFF has successfully reformulated seasonings for sodium-reduced snacks, allowing heavy users to enjoy the experience as if they were tasting the original product—despite clear sensory differences in side-by-side comparisons.

This breakthrough paves the way for reductions in sodium, sugar, and MSG, unlocking numerous possibilities for meeting consumer expectations while supporting evolving dietary needs.

Flavors have a powerful connection to our brain, engaging the limbic system—the core of our emotions. As consumers increasingly prioritize mental well-being, and brands seek unique positioning, IFF took on the challenge of crafting a flavored water designed to bring genuine joy to consumers.

This pursuit blends sensory science with emotional impact, offering an experience that goes beyond taste to elevate mood and make every sip a moment of happiness.

For over 25 years, IFF’s Beyond Hedonics™ program has pioneered innovative methods to measure emotions, recognizing that true insights extend beyond simply asking if a consumer feels happy. To meet this challenge, we’ve integrated cutting-edge techniques that capture both explicit (declarative) and implicit (body and brain measurements) responses.

Supported by a robust database of flavor ingredients and their emotional impacts, we’ve crafted flavors specifically designed to uplift consumers and bring moments of happiness into their lives.

A flavor formulated with “happy” ingredients alone doesn’t guarantee a joyful experience.

That’s why we have rigorously tested these finished flavors using both explicit (declarative) methods and implicit approaches, including physiological and brain activity measurements.

The results confirmed that our flavored water genuinely uplifted consumers—not just through what they reported, but through the unmistakable signals from their brains and bodies.