Your new flavour is not moving off the shelf and the problem started long before packaging, pricing, or marketing. It started in your flavour brief.

In this episode, I break down why most food and drink founders base their flavour direction on what they want the product to represent rather than what their target consumers actually need from it.

And that gap is exactly why 76% of new product launches in the UK fail in their first year.

Drawing on over 10 years in the food industry, flavour house training, and work with brands from McVitie's to functional start-ups, I walk you through real case studies including marine collagen, vegan omega-3, and a pre-workout brand that found a genuine gap in the market by going against category norms.

This episode will help you build a flavour strategy that is grounded in real consumer insight, not assumption.

👋 If you are new here, I am Manon Galizzi, food scientist and flavour expert with over 10 years in the food and drink industry. The Food Lab is the podcast for food & drink founders who want to build brands that actually last on retailer shelves. Subscribe so you never miss an episode!

📱 STAY CONNECTED

▪️ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/epicsi.uk

▪️ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manon-galizzi-94700666/

▪️ Website: epicsi.co.uk

Related Topics: Food Industry Trends, Flavour Brief, Product Development, Consumer Insight, Sensory Science, Food Start-up Strategy, Repeat Purchase, Functional Ingredients, FMCG, EPICSI

Still getting taste complaints after switching the flavour? You're not solving the right problem.

In this episode I walk you through the 4 root causes behind almost every food and drink product taste complaint, and what a proper diagnosis actually looks like.

After years training and working inside a flavour house, and working with brands like McVitie's, I kept seeing the same cycle play out with food and drink founders.

Taste complaint comes in, they contact their supplier, they request more samples, and nothing really changes. Sometimes they end up with 20 or 30 flavour samples and no real direction. The problem is almost never just the flavour.

Understanding which root cause is actually behind your complaint is what changes everything.

In this episode I cover the wrong flavour profile, off-notes from challenging functional ingredients, an unbalanced base, and ingredient interactions, and I give you a structured 4-question taste audit you can do this week before you reach out to anyone.

👋 If you are new here, I am Manon Galizzi, food scientist and flavour expert with over 10 years in the food and drink industry. The Food Lab is the podcast for food & drink founders who want to build brands that actually last on retailer shelves. Subscribe so you never miss an episode!

📱 STAY CONNECTED

▪️ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/epicsi.uk

▪️ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manon-galizzi-94700666/

▪️ Website: epicsi.co.uk

Related Topics: Food Industry Trends, Product Development, Flavour Development, Taste Complaints, Food Product Formulation, Functional Ingredients, Masking Flavouring, Off-Notes, Flavour Profile, Food Startup Strategy, EPICSI

Your food or drink product is on the shelf. Consumers are picking it up. So why aren't they coming back for more?

Most food & drink founders blame their marketing or their price point.

To be honest, the answer is almost always in the product itself — and more specifically, in the flavour.

In this episode, I break down the three flavour problems that quietly destroy your repeat purchase rate, and I give you the exact fixes for each one.

Here is the number that changed everything for me: a customer who buys your product once has around a 25% chance of buying again. But a customer who buys it twice? That jumps to 50%.

That compounding effect is where food & drink businesses actually become sustainable.

Tasting nice is not enough. It has to be amazing. It has to be memorable.

And in this episode, I show you exactly how to get there.

If you are working through a specific flavour challenge and would like a professional perspective on what is going on and how to fix it, this is exactly what I do at EPICSI.

👉 Book a call here: https://www.epicsi.co.uk/quote

📱 STAY CONNECTED

▪️ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/epicsi.uk

▪️ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manon-galizzi-94700666/

▪️ Website: epicsi.co.uk

👋 If you are new here, I am Manon Galizzi, food scientist and flavour expert with over 10 years in the food and drink industry. The Food Lab is the podcast for food & drink founders who want to build brands that actually last on retailer shelves. Subscribe so you never miss an episode!