MANE UK’s innovation centre in Derby provides a full range of sweet and savoury flavours, seasonings, stocks, and other taste solutions to satisfy the most discerning consumer tastes.
MANE first set up its Derby facilities in 2010 to benefit from its central UK location and excellent transport connections, making it easy to connect with customers across the UK and internationally. Following years of successful collaboration with its partners, MANE UK outgrew the original building and relocated to its larger, modern refurbished site in March 2022.
“We moved to our new facilities less than a year ago”, explains Paul Thompson, General Manager, United Kingdom & Ireland. “We now have four laboratories that work with our broad portfolio of ingredients from flavours to concentrated juices to compounds, applying them to a wide range of sweet and savoury food and drink, plus we also create seasonings for various snacks. With the additional space, we plan to extend our local sensory capabilities to ensure that our solutions are relevant to everchanging taste preferences. Creation is everything. We take our natural ingredients and apply them to food and drink recipes to create tasty products for specific consumer needs.”
More than taste, it involves emotion
Creating the right taste for products requires a combination of technical skills to formulate flavour ingredients, as well as sensory analysis to recognise the specific taste aspects that evoke emotions. “We have a R&D team of flavourists, application technologists and our chef, who identify and select the appropriate ingredients to use at optimal levels in product recipes to ensure that consumers’ taste expectations are met,” says Paul Thompson.
A full range of flavours and delivery systems
MANE’s creation and application labs in the UK use flavours in multiple formats including liquid, powder, granules etc. that are specifically formulated for sweet or savoury food and drink applications.
Sweet flavours are used primarily for bakery, confectionery, dairy, performance nutrition and beverages. For example, the UK is an important market for traditional hot beverages such as tea and coffee, with consumers increasingly looking to discover new flavours and experiences to transport their senses based on different need states.
MANE’s savoury solutions are used in a wide range of products including snacks, ready meals, plant-based alternatives, as well as pet food. “More recently, we are seeing a growing trend for vegan and plant-based products as consumers look for meat alternative foods, we are constantly evolving our range of solutions to meet market requirements,” explains Paul Thompson.
Meeting customer expectations
The role of the innovation centre in Derby is to take skill sets and technologies from within the MANE business and bring them together to serve the UK customer base. “Taste profiles differ from one location to another, so when we develop tastes, we need to make sure that the flavours are relevant to the UK,” Paul Thompson points out. “For example, here in Derby, we have marketing and development expertise for snacks and snack seasoning which is one of our key market segments. You will find the largest range of crisp flavours here in the UK, from salt & vinegar to limited editions of unusual or seasonal flavours.”
“By working closely with our customers, we select the relevant MANE ingredients to meet their objectives. Speed of success can vary depending on the complexity of the project, we aim to get it right first time as much as possible. Our customers know their market, and we understand taste, therefore, we work closely together to achieve the desired result. Fundamentally, people will buy a product because of the marketing, but they will only buy it a second time if they like the taste.”
MANE UK serves a wide customer base with local as well as international profiles. Customers include:
- major food and drink manufacturers
- small to medium enterprises (SMEs)
- start-ups.
An excellent team with a very creative skill set
“We have a team in Derby which includes snack flavourists, food technologists, marketing, sales, and customer service. While many employees have been here a long time, which reflects the respectful and supportive working environment of a family-owned business, our latest recruits appreciate a welcoming and collaborative culture. And so do our customers. They know that we listen, we learn, and work with them, to produce the best taste and flavour solutions for their products,” concludes Paul Thompson.