FLAVODRINKS has developed new methodologies of analysis of volatiles compounds able to enhance sweet perception. These protocols are based on several multidimensional analytical techniques well described in the literature, such as multidimensional gas chromatography mass spectrometry (MDGC-MS), but also techniques much less often applied in the literature, such as OLFACTOSCAN. This project also led to the development of a novel technique called “Gas Chromatography – Odor Associated to Taste” (GC-OAT) to select and identify flavor-associated odorants. The new GC-OAT method, coupled with mass spectrometry, was used to select and identify odorant-induced taste. The novel method developed asking to provide a ‘taste’ attribute to an odour makes a better performance in selecting odorants associated with taste compared than regular GC-O. It is especially interesting to underline that it is very important to select a specific extraction volatile methodology to obtain reliable volatile fingerprint of the beverage. The use of these compounds has the advantage that they were extracted and identified from the same fruit juice or soft drink. Thinking in terms of real food application, this fact may be an advantage for consumer acceptance and labelling, because volatile compounds are natural odours already present in the juices or soft drinks.
In fact, some of FLAVODRINKS results indicate that some odorant are able to enhance sweet perception in soft drinks and juices. These first promising results on sweetness enhancement in beverages makes a way to increase sweetness perception in juices and soft drinks reinforcing these odorants in the beverages in a natural way to reduce the amount of sugar added. The multidimensional approach in this project allowed detailed analysis of structure-activity relationships in compounds linked to sweetness perception. This work has highlighted the importance of stereochemistry: several aroma compounds were found associated to sweetness perception as one enantiomer but not the other which has never been reported before.
