A flavorist is a chemist responsible for discovering just the right combinations of certain substances, such as chemicals, botanical extracts and essential oils, to create and re-create natural and artificial flavors for use in food and beverage products, oral hygiene products, lip cosmetics, vitamins, and medicines
Course to study: This career requires seven years of hands-on study – five years of intensive study and two years apprenticing as a junior flavorist – before professional certification as a senior or master of the craft. Common traits that flavorists share are strong creativity, mathematics, organic chemistry, communication, and recordkeeping skills.
What can you do as a qualified flavorist: a flavorist can succeed in any food and beverage industry, and also in the beauty or pharmaceutical industries everywhere there is need for a good scent. There are, for instance, flavour companies that specialise in preparing and selling extracts to use in wide variety of industries.
Salary: The median salary of chemists, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is $69,790. The range is $39,000 – $116,000.
“Flavorist is a very creative profession where there is not just one answer as to how a particular product should taste or smell. The profession obviously requires a good palate. Flavorists mimic natural flavours to recreate them with the use of chemicals. The development process, of course, has its pros and cons. While on the one hand sometimes using too much of a flavour can eliminate the memory of the original natural taste, on the other hand it allows creating flavours similar to the natural ones while avoiding side effects such as allergy reactions. At the end we all use flavours in all kind of products on a daily basis, whether it is a lemonade, marzipan or even lips balm, all emitting pleasant fragrances, just as people like it.”
Photo: Shutterstock
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