All Photos l Felicia D’Ambrosio

David Michael produces natural alternatives to synthetic food coloring

David Michael & Co. has been in the Philadelphia food business for over 100 years, but you’ve never heard of them. That’s because DM is a flavor developer who sells their taste technology to the companies you do know — sellers of consumer packaged goods, or CPGs.   CPGs purchase flavors, stabilizers and coloring agents from the food scientists at DM, as well as technology and product-development insight.

The Innovation Roadshow, held yesterday at the Delaware Avenue Hyatt-Regency, invited food scientists and marketers from DM’s exclusive client list to taste flavors and products that DM predicts will be trendy two to three years out. DM CEO Skip Rosskam offered teases of what’s up next. “Our research indicates persimmon will [be] on-trend in two to three years,” Rosskam said in an interview with Meal Ticket. “So right now, we are educating our clients on this flavor, so they can taste it and get familiar.”

DM also produces prototypes of finished goods that they predict will be highly desirable, like this year’s Pie Pops — portion-controlled, 50-calorie mini pies on a stick — and Meatloaf Cupcakes. “Comfort foods are big in this economy,” Rosskam said. “So we developed an idea for mini-meatloaf “cupcakes” iced with flavored mashed potatoes.” Keep in mind DM would not produce such a frozen, direct-t0-consumer product, but rather the flavorings that would enhance it.

Meatloaf Cupcakes

“We can make a flavor that tastes exactly like roast beef,” said Rosskam. “When you put a roast beef in the oven, a natural reaction happens — browning, caramelizing; and we can do this in science. We recreate taste by reacting a protein with a sugar — this is done with natural chemistry to manipulate and modify the flavor.  We can create a rare roast beef flavor, or a grill-charred beef flavor.  One advantage is such a flavor is meatless — a great addition to a veggie burger.”

Care for cake in your milk?

In addition to predicting and manufacturing the popular flavors of the future, like authentic Chinese fruit flavors honey sweet date and sea buckthorn or exotic Australian rosella (wild hibiscus) and blood lime, DM presents product possibilities to their CPG clients. The Roadshow offered looks at product prototypes like real fruit snacks infused with bacon or barbecue flavors, savory spicy tamarind lollipops, “Tipsy Chips” that taste just like a blood orange-jalapeno margarita or bleu cheese dirty gin martini, milks flavored like bakery treats such as carrot cake and blueberry muffins, dessert bruschetta, single-origin ice creams, chocolate sparkling water and cocktail gel shooters delivered in plastic packets akin to oversize single servings of ketchup.

One item that seemed immediately marketable was DM’s natural alternatives to FD&C colors for food and pharmaceutical products. Developed by Nathalie Pauleau-Larry of David Michael Europe, which specializes in natural color, the line ranges from green-yellow to red-purple and uses ingredients like tumeric, carotenes, paprika, carmine and anthocyanins from fruit and vegetables, like black carrots or red sweet potatoes to create bright but lifelike colors.

“A 2007 study in the UK [published in The Lancet] showed FD&C colors had indications of causing hyperactivity in children,” Rosskam explained. “By 2010, the United Kingdom will have regulations in place that require products using synthetic colors to carry a warning on the front of the box that they may cause hyperactivity.” That kind of marketer’s nightmare boilerplate presents a unique opportunity for DM to fill a void in the market with their natural colors, in Rosskam’s opinion.

Though you’ve never heard of them, some of DM’s 100 years of R&D are likely sitting on your cabinet shelf right now. “Our client list is confidential,” says Rosskam. “But you can’t walk very far in a supermarket without seeing hundreds of examples of our work.”

Tasting the future at the David Michael Innovation Roadshow

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 12:26 pm and is filed under Dirty Dishes, Interview, Product Placement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.