Kerry unveils Smart Taste™ to redefine flavor innovation, industry resilience
Kerry’s Smart Taste™ helps manufacturers cut cocoa use by up to 50% and sugar by up to 100%, delivering major cost savings and sustainability gains without compromising indulgent flavor.
IRELAND – Kerry, a global leader in taste and nutrition, has launched Smart Taste™, a proprietary range of taste solutions designed to help food and beverage manufacturers overcome modern industry challenges without compromising on flavor quality.
Smart Taste™ integrates the company’s expertise across multiple portfolios, including Dairy Taste, Tastes of Fire (cooking flavors), Tastesense™ Salt, Sweetness and Masking, Cocoa, and Citrus.
Through this combination, Kerry aims to support producers facing rising regulatory pressures, ingredient cost volatility, and supply chain constraints, all while maintaining the exceptional taste consumers expect.
One of Smart Taste’s key innovations lies in addressing the cocoa crisis, which has led to escalating costs and supply challenges worldwide.
Kerry’s cocoa boosters within the Smart Taste range enable manufacturers to reduce cocoa usage by up to 50% without compromising indulgence or richness.
This approach delivers up to 40% cost savings while reducing carbon emissions by as much as 48%, marking a significant step toward sustainability.
Smart Taste also addresses the global trend toward sugar reduction.
Kerry’s Tastesense Sweetness technology enables up to 100% sugar reduction by rebuilding mouthfeel, enhancing sweetness perception, and masking undesirable off-notes, ensuring both regulatory compliance and consumer satisfaction in reduced-sugar and sugar-free product lines.
“In today’s complex food and beverage landscape, great taste alone is no longer enough,” said Leigh Anne Vaughan, VP of Strategy & Marketing – Taste.
“Our Smart Taste™ proprietary solutions directly address our customers’ pain points by optimizing flavor profiles in a way that reduces reliance on costly or volatile ingredients, supports cleaner labels, and meets evolving regulations, cost-effectively and sustainably.”
She emphasized that the solutions are built on Kerry’s deep market insights, world-class flavor creation, and advanced food science expertise.
The result is a holistic approach that helps brands meet rising nutritional demands, cost pressures, and sustainability goals without compromising consumer enjoyment.
John Savage, President and CEO of Taste, added that Kerry’s approach reflects a new level of integration between science and creativity.
“We’re responding to an unprecedented level of market uncertainty that affects every stage of the production process – from raw material supply to the cost of delivering the final product to consumers,” he said.
“At the heart of Smart Taste™ is the deep integration of advanced scientific processes that go far beyond traditional flavor creation. This includes Kerry’s strategic investments in technologies like biofermentation and AI, enabling us to push the boundaries of innovation and rapidly solve taste challenges that extend well beyond delivering great taste alone,” Savage added.
Smart Taste™ represents a pivotal step in helping manufacturers build more resilient, sustainable, and cost-efficient food systems worldwide.
This commitment to innovation and sustainable growth also extends beyond technology, into the development of future talent.
Mo-Kerry Scholarship Program
Recently, Kerry announced the Mo-Kerry Scholarship Program, a transformative partnership between the Mo Dewji Foundation and Kerry to cultivate the next generation of African food technologists and industry leaders.
The fully sponsored, one-year program will combine academic excellence with hands-on industry experience in the fields of food science, nutrition, and innovation.
Designed for Tanzanian graduates, it aims to strengthen local expertise, foster university-industry collaboration, and drive sustainable growth across Africa’s food systems, further reinforcing Kerry’s mission to shape a more resilient global food future.
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