ADM: Translating consumer behaviors into scalable flavor strategies
28 Apr 2026 | ADM
Coralie Garcia, senior flavor product marketing manager for EMEA at ADM, answers key questions on translating consumer emotions into flavor strategies, balancing sustainability with innovation, and the role of data in flavor development. Filmed at ADM’s Flavor Innovation Center in Berlin, Germany, the discussion offers valuable insights into the future of flavor across a diverse F&B market.
Finne Greens first reporting from ADM's Flavor Innovation Center in Berlin, Germany, and we're joined by Karali Garcia, who is senior flavor Product Marketing Manager for Amir.
Welcome to you.
So can you start by telling us how does ADM translate evolving consumer emotions and behaviors into scalable flavor strategies that actually drive commercial success for its clients?
I think one of the first things we do is really capture the insight of the market, and we do that by looking at what is happening in food and beverage, fashion, art, design, and capturing all these elements to understand where consumers.
We do a lot of social media listening.
We do our own consumer research to understand which flavor consumers associate with some, with some emotion.
And we capture all of that to, to drive what is the future of flavor and color, and it's what we do in our flavor and color, our cook report that we release every year.
And when you have a view on this, then you can start to look at what does it mean for our customers, because every, not every trend will be important for every customer.
When you have a customer that is launching a new brand, the most important is not the trending flavor, it's the mainstream flavor.
So you need to to find the right balance between what are the mainstream flavors that need to be core for a brand that is.
Launching a range of how you extend a range for our customers with new innovative flavor or innovative combination and it's really what we do we combine all the insight we gather from the market.
To guide our customers on what is the most important for them, either it's growing some core mainstream flavor or whether it's coming with something innovative, new to the market to excite their consumer.
OK, it's interesting.
So with the increase in demands around sustainability, health, and costs and other, other demands, where do you see the biggest trade-offs in flavor innovation today, and how should brands navigate these, these sort of contrasting demands?
I think one of the biggest challenges in the market at the moment is consumers are more and more demanding.
They want it all, so it's about, being transparent, bringing clean label, and it's where ADM is in a very strong position because more than 90% of our portfolio is natural and it's where also for customers they need a strong partner in terms of technical solution, technology driven solution to.
To find the right solution to balance the challenge about affordability, healthy, low low salt, low sugar solution, because nowadays it's not anymore about removing the bad thing, it's about balancing the overall experience because tastes remain king.
People will never rebuy your product if the test is not there, so it's, it's not about removing things to be healthy or just adding things, it's about the whole sensory experience that you need to, to deliver and it's having the right captive ingredient and the right technology to support our customers to optimize their process, optimize their product.
And at the end, because we have so many business units because we are agriculture driven company, agri-food company, we have protein, we have health and wellness ingredients, so our product developers are able to develop from scratch products that are healthy and that are sustainable, and the work of our flavorists is to develop flavor in this new area.
So we are, we are very positioned.
Because we understand how to develop these products, so we already developed flavor for healthy products that are developed as such, and it's not about optimizing product anymore, it's about developing the right healthy product for consumer.
Exactly.
So as you know, Amia is a highly diverse market.
So how do you balance the demand for local taste authenticity with the need for global product platforms?
I think you need to take global platform.
Global platforms are key, and you need to have this global platform to ensure you have the right technology, the right captive ingredient, the right solution to.
To support customers in their challenges that are global, like optimizing brewing process, so with our opp extract we can help our customers in that area.
And after taking this molecule, this preparatory ingredient and tailoring our solution to the market, if you take a vanilla flavor for ice cream in France, it will be quite creamy.
In Germany it will be more buttery and it's where our sensory consumer understanding is very key and the expertise of our flavorists, they have the right molecule that come from this global platform and they are the experts in tailoring to the local preference.
So how is data, including, of course, AI driven insights, changing the way flavor concepts developed and marketed and what still requires human intuition.
I think AI is changing the way we interact.
It's, it's not necessarily.
About the data itself, it's more about how we analyze the data because you can imagine that when we do We gather consumer insight from our consumer research, from what is on social media.
You can spend months doing only that, and AI is just an enabler, an accelerator to to analyze this data and to get really the essence of the data, and we use this data to develop our solution.
So for me it's an enabler, but at the end.
AI will tell you, OK, Matcha, YouBay are trending on social media and everything, but it will not tell you, OK, what kind of profile is Youe?
Does it need to be more rusty?
Or things like that.
This is where flavorists and human are key because the machine will never be able to describe.
It's like wine.
You can't ask AI to tell you, OK, between these two wines, which one is more berry like they might find the information outside, but they will not be able to describe and in flavor.
Human, it is important to have this difference and as we discussed earlier, for me flavor is about emotion and AI don't get emotion.
Human brings the emotion.
Yeah, OK, that's interesting.
So as a final question, as functional and better for you products increasingly become mainstream, what will differentiate brands in taste and sensory experience over the next, say, 5 to 10 years?
As I said earlier, I think what differentiates brand is the brands that are able to develop functional products from scratch that are healthy and to work with companies like ADM that understand what it takes to develop this product and how to.
Develop flavor that work in this environment with more protein, more fiber, because the flavor from 20 years ago might not work, but the flavor that we are developing today are working and it's also why it's very important to have partners that, do a lot of consumer research.
Every 2 years we do consumer research around health and wellness to understand which flavor consumers associated with digestive health, cognitive health, and you need to understand this because if you want to launch an energy beverage, you will probably go.
With citrus and tropical, but if your goal is to have a functional beverage to, to, to touch digestive health, you will go more on botanicals, mint, and it's, it's partnering with a company that understands all this subtility to be able to ensure that you have, you will have the right molecule, the right functional molecule, but you need to have the test that will resonate with consumers with this functionality.
Yes, that's brilliant.
Thanks for your time today.
