The Food Lab

Going to a flavour supplier with a taste problem is the right move, but only if you arrive with a flavour strategy first. Without one, you lose months in samples that never quite land. I trained inside a flavour company, so I have seen this from both sides. In this episode I explain what your supplier is genuinely set up to do, the strategic work they will never do for you, and the one thing I fix...

There is a difference between a flavour people like and a flavour people remember, and it gets decided before your consumer has even opened the pack. In this episode I break down the flavour memory science behind why a technically perfect recipe still gets "it doesn't taste like strawberry" from your target consumer. 👋 If you are new here, I am Manon Galizzi, food scientist and flav...

Is your flavour name actually earning repeat purchase, or quietly losing customers you'll never get back? This episode breaks down one of the most overlooked reasons food and drink brands see their sales slow down: the gap between what your packaging promises and what your product really tastes like. Most food and drink founders treat flavour naming as a marketing decision, and that makes sens...

The flavour is always the last thing food brands think about when they reformulate. And it is almost always the reason their most loyal customers quietly stop buying. In this episode, I am breaking down the part of reformulation that nobody warns you about: what happens to your flavour profile when everything else in the recipe changes. • Why more food and drink brands are reformulating right now...

The GLP-1 shift is not about making your product smaller. It is about making it better. Here is what UK food and drink brands need to understand right now to stay relevant on shelf. In this episode I cover: - What the research actually says about GLP-1 users and their relationship with food — and why it is more complicated than "they eat less" - The £780 million reduction in UK grocery b...

186 trials. That is what it actually takes to develop a clean label, allergen-free, plant-based barista drink from scratch. If you are in the middle of product development right now, this episode will save you months of work and possibly thousands of pounds. In this episode, I walk you through the entire development journey of a plant-based barista drink: the formulation challenges, the flavour pa...

Stop looking at your overall sales figures and thinking your Food or drink product is doing fine. In this episode of The Food Lab Podcast, I break down why 76% of new food and drink products launched in UK retail every year quietly disappear, and why it almost always comes down to one number. Drawing on data from Nielsen, Kantar, McKinsey, and a real Tesco case study, I explain what the number is,...

59% of consumers say taste is the most influential factor when evaluating a health drink. Not the ingredient. Not the health claim. Not the price. Taste. If your adaptogen product is relying on functionality to carry a flavour that isn't working, this episode will change how you develop. The global adaptogen market is worth nearly $11 billion and is one of the fastest growing categories in foo...

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 launch...

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 o...

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 rat...

Your product tastes good. Your team agrees, the reviews are positive, and the complaints are few. And yet your repeat purchase rate is far lower than it should be. So you start questioning the packaging, the price, the marketing. But what if none of those things are the real problem? In this episode I go one level deeper into the neuroscience of why consumers come back, the three specific things a...

Most food and drink founders are pouring everything into finding new customers. New listings, new stockists, new ads. And on the surface, it looks like growth. But underneath that, there is a question most of them are not asking. Are the people who bought last month actually coming back? In this episode I share a real client story that changed the way they saw their entire business, break down the...

Every year, more than 1,300 new food and drink products are launched on UK retail shelves. And 76% of them quietly disappear. To be honest, I do not think this is talked about enough, because the reason why is so fixable. In this episode, I explain the one metric that retailers like Tesco actually use to decide who stays on shelf and who gets delisted, why your sales figures are not telling you th...

Most food and drink brands spend thousands making their product look TikTokable for Gen Z. But they forget one thing: Gen-Z palate is far more complex than you think. In this episode, I walk you through the 5 Gen Z flavour trends that matter right now, the 3 mistakes that are getting products delisted, and how to build a flavour strategy that actually speaks to this generation. In this episode: ▪️...

If you've ever said "we want to appeal to everyone" about your food or drink product, this episode is going to hit home. Because trying to please everyone with your flavour strategy is one of the most common mistakes I see food and drink founders make. And it's also the fastest way to end up with a product that resonates with no one and gets pulled from shelf. In this episode, I...

186 trials. That is what it took to develop this plant-based barista drink from scratch. A clean label brief, no allergens, no seed oils, no stabilisers, and a client who knew exactly what she wanted. In this episode, I am pulling back the curtain on the entire journey. The technical challenges, the mistakes I made, the partners who completely let us down, and the intellectual property lesson ever...

What happens at Expo West in the US typically arrives in the UK two to three years later. Following the Food & Drink Expo at the NEC Birmingham, I am sharing the nine key trends from Expo West 2026 that will reshape our industry. In this episode, we explore why fibre is moving beyond gut health and how convenience is beginning to outweigh health claims for the busy consumer. We also dive into...

Imagine having a brilliant food or drink product and a genuinely good supplier or contract-manufacturer, yet spending months—and thousands of pounds—stuck in a loop of terrible samples. In this episode, I break down the story of two drink brands (one vegan supplement/protein and one marine collagen) that hit a wall despite doing everything "right." If you feel like you're burning tim...

Do you know how many of your customers actually come back and buy your food product again? Not roughly. Really. Because repeat purchase is the number that tells you the truth. Last week I spoke at the Nourish conference organised by the Tastebuds Collective, and I heard something that anchored what I think about what actually drives food and drink repeat purchase. Spoiler: it's not your packag...

You know your functional product has a taste challenge. The earthy notes, the bitterness, that lingering fishy aftertaste that just will not go away. You know it. But you are not quite sure where to start, or what a proper process even looks like. In this episode, I am taking you behind the scenes of exactly what happens when a functional food or drink brand brings me their product and says, this...

You have been going back and forth with your supplier or your contract manufacturer for months. You keep getting the samples, you do the testing, and every single time at the end of the tasting session you have things like, I don't know, I'm not sure, let's ask for more options. And you go back to square one again. This episode is about one of the main reasons your food or drink produc...

You had an amazing day at the market. People tried your product, they loved it, they told you it was brilliant. You drove home thinking, this is working. But here's the thing. Most food and drink founders in that exact moment never ask the one question that could completely change the way they see that day. In this episode, I am talking about something I see all the time with established food...

What if you could know exactly what's wrong with your food or drink product flavour, and exactly how to fix it, in just one week? No guessing. No months of back and forth with suppliers. Just clear, expert answers, fast. In this episode of The Food Lab Podcast, I'm taking you fully behind the scenes of the Flavour MOT, my expert flavour health check for established food and drink brands. I...

Is your food or drink product getting negative reviews about the taste? Are sales slowing down and you're not sure why? Or maybe you're about to pitch to retailers or investors and you just need to know, honestly, that your product is ready? As a flavour expert and food product development consultant, I meet food and drink brand owners in exactly this situation: at events, through my websi...