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Let’s talk chocolate!  With the variations in the cocoa market, chocolate flavors and their alternatives are a must.  Our technical team has developed a large portfolio of powdered flavours to respond to a variety of needs: booster, masking, replacer.

To quote a few chocolate flavours & their usage:
-  To replace your cocoa powder 1:1
- To decrease your cocoa powder content up to 25% with a usage level of 0.3%
- To mask bitter notes, protein aftertaste
In order to offer you more alternatives, our R&D team is constantly looking into new cocoa replacer flavorings, always improving and refining our cocoa based formula.

Eaten up by kids, savoured by adults, cocoa is an agricultural commodity subjected to worrying variations for the past years. The world cocoa market has been holding its breath. West Africa  is supplying 68% of the world’s production: looking at the cocoa producers, and the reasons of the price fluctuations.

1. Cocoa producers

The world cocoa supply is strongly dependent to the Western Africa producers, especially from Ivory Coast (39%) and Ghana (18%). Prices have kept increasing for the past 6 years, jumping to a new highest peak at £ 2,465 a tonne, the highest level reached in the last 30 years in the history of cocoa.

2. Prices fluctuations, spotlight on Ivory Coast

-  Environmental reasons
As an agricultural commodity, the cocoa crops rely on a fragile balance. The climate conditions (severe flood or drought) influence directly the production and the cocoa prices.

- The resources exhausted by a continuous & increasing demand for more cocoa
The production of the Ivory Coast is divided between 800,000 producers. The trees planted 25 years ago, had reached their peak of productivity and the crops volume are slowly decreasing. In 2008/2009 the world cocoa supply had fallen short of demand for the third consecutive year. (Quarterly Bulletin of Cocoa Statistics du ICCO)

- The unsteady political situation of the country also influences the cocoa market
End of 2010, the prices increased suddenly by 5% in 2 days, following the controversial results of the presidential election in the Ivory Coast.  Since the cocoa industry is a very lucrative market, the government is closely involved.
 

The berry season has returned and at Metarom our collection is stacked full of strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries and blackcurrant.  Our flavorists have gone off the deep end and have developed a selection of exciting new berries to enhance your product development.

- Our berry flavours:
- Cloudberry, flavour developed for alcoholic beverages
- Marionberry, flavour developed for baking and ice creams
- Huckleberry, flavour developed for beverages and confectionaries
- White cranberry, flavour developed for beverages

Presently in California since 2010, Metarom Neotech has decided this year to strengthen the support to its western clients in Canada and the US. At the beginning of the summer, a sales office rose up in British Columbia, Burnaby based.

Next fall, do not miss the 23rd supplier’s night held by the CIFST in Ontario. For this event, our team will have the pleasure to present you its last star flavors in various finished products. A true delight for your taste buds!

Come visit us at Supplier’s Night -- April 7, 2011, from 2pm to 7pm at Place Forzani Laval.

www.placeforzani.ca/placeforzani/directions.html
 

March 2011, marked Metarom Neotech debut as an exhibitor at the Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim, California. Several flavor applications were specially developed for this show - to the delight of our visitor’s taste buds:

• For the “Sweet Tooth”
Visitors sampled both lemon and coconut flavored ‘Diamond sablés’ (a shortbread type cookie), then tried our coffee and dulce de leche flavored French macarons; and finally savored hand-made mint and strawberry flavoured marshmallows.  All of our “sweet tooth” delicacies were prepared for the event by Ôpera Cafe & Patisserie (fine French patisserie in San Diego, California).

• Our “Syrup Bar”
Always innovative, Metarom Neotech came up with a twist to today’s classical hot beverages, allowing our visitors to “be the barrista” and choose both their own syrup* flavor and their hot beverage**of choice .The various combinations highlight the influence of the product base on the flavour profiles, to finally achieve unique combinations of syrups/ beverages.
An unexpected and highly appreciated duo created by our visitors, was the pumpkin spice coffee. In this autumnal like beverage, the mellow flavor notes of ripe pumpkin soften the bitterness of dark coffee. At the same time, the spices notes of this syrup intensify the aroma of the beverage, inspired by Mexican type coffee.

*Flavored syrups : Pumpkin spice, pina colada, mojito, red velvet cake
** Beverages : Coffee, milk, soy milk, tea

Thanks to :
Ôpera Cafe & Patisserie
www.operapatisserie.com