Flavors: Innovation within Boundaries

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By Josh Doyle

Relaxing at his desk after a day working from home, 31-year-old Harrison Daniel surprises even himself as he exhales mango-flavored vape from an e-cigarette. Once a traditional cigarette smoker, he swore never to take part in what he saw as an unfortunate trend: people at all his favorite hangouts were blowing blimp-sized clouds of fruity-flavored smoke.

“That’s why I stayed away from vaping for a long time,” Daniel said.

But when some of his friends joined the shift to e-cigarettes, curiosity got the better of him. Daniel waded slowly into the world of electronic options, hesitant to embrace flavors like fruit punch and tutti-frutti. But when he found a palm-sized e-cig that didn’t require too much pocket space or jumbo-sized smoke clouds, he gave it a shot.

He liked the convenience and the fact that it didn’t stink up his car. But Daniel found flavors to be another hurdle, many of which he says used to ruin the taste of food.

“The first flavors I got, I didn’t go towards the fruit,” said Daniel. “The flavors were so strong that if you tried to eat or drink anything you just couldn’t.”

Those unwelcome aftertastes pushed Daniel towards milder options, like cola and vanilla tobacco. But after his experience grew, Daniel realized there was a wide disparity in quality between some pods and vaping products. Many of them were overpowering. Others left behind a residue in your mouth. Some pods and flavors were simply “better dialed in” than others, he said, a problem Daniel fixed when he upgraded his e-cig.

After some trial and error, Daniel found his happy place with mango. It gives the right amount of flavor while staying mild enough not to ruin the taste of an IPA, although he’s not biased towards tropical fruit.

“It’s not too heavy. Same thing for the cucumber. They’re both pretty mild,” he said.

The vaping industry has exploded in the past few years, and with it has come a tidal wave of new flavors. While the number of smokers worldwide has been slowly falling, the number of vapers is on the rise, jumping up from about seven million in 2011 to 35 million in 2016. An industry once valued at only US$4.2 billion just five years ago is now worth as much as $22.6 billion globally. In the US, Japan, and the UK — the world’s three largest vaping markets — vapers spent a combined $16.3 billion on vaping products and smokeless tobacco in 2016.

That massive growth has pushed smokeless tobacco companies to get creative with flavoring, as they search for the next combination that will light up consumer taste buds.

“We have seen the vaping industry grow and develop in many ways and all these changes have most definitely pushed us to get more creative,” said Emilie Nault, vice president and head of sales at Dubai-based FLAVORIQ, a flavoring company that has spent over 60 years, through its strategic partner, German-based company Hertz Flavors, making smoking and vaping taste better. As the vaping industry evolves, Nault says customers tastes have evolved with it.

“Vapers are constantly looking for the next innovation, whether it be in flavor type or in experience (i.e. cooling trend), and flavor companies feel the need to innovate and present new options to their customers,” she said.

Like any industry, high demand in the vaping space has worked out well for consumers, who are now spoiled for choice. What started as simple and tobacco-orientated flavors in the early days has blossomed towards sweet dessert liquids and fruitier options, as the growing catalogue of flavors pushes vapers to get adventurous.

The trend now, according to Nault, is to more complex flavors that combine three or more taste profiles.

“It has been a constant challenge to adapt to the ever-moving consumer trends,” said Nault.

Seasonal preferences can help ease the burden of flavorists, as each season brings its own predictable trends. Just like some dieticians preach eating the seasons, vapor and e-cig flavorists are playing to the moods of hot summer days and cold wintery nights. In summer months, adventurous vapers tend to saunter in the direction of citrus and light fruity flavors. But come the colder months, many will again corral around the more comforting tastes.

Experienced teams have been watching these cycles for years, making them well-prepared to anticipate shifts in market preference or pounce on a new trend quickly once it emerges. But with the e-cigarette market still young and in flux, those shifts will continue to surprise even seasoned teams. Market-watcher Euromonitor predicts that the current dominance by open systems will continue to decline, hitting 32% of value sales by 2021, down from 71% in 2014, as closed systems gain popularity.

But vapor products will continue to grow overall, eclipsing cigars and smoking tobacco to become the largest category outside cigarettes by 2020. Countless flavor combinations and creative teams will continue adding to the appeal, helping draw in new customers and traditional smokers. In 2015, e-liquids were the fastest-growing product category in the vaping world, increasing 57% in value sales to hit US$1.0 billion. As the importance of flavoring continues to rise, flavoring companies looking to win major partnerships will look to highlight their long track records of experience and innovation.

“This, of course, does not mean that creating a new flavor is an easy task, but it does reduce the initial trial and error time,” Nault said of their team, which has seen more than 60 years in the industry.

“Our flavorists take a lot of time to carefully adjust the ratios to make sure we provide the perfect vape experience,” she said.

You wouldn’t know it from the large and fruity menu of vaping flavors available today, but flavorists have come up against a few roadblocks in their quest to make smoking and vaping products taste good. In March, the FDA released its highly anticipated policy restricting e-cigarette sales. Their proposal aims to curb sales of some flavored products, especially those that they believe could attract underage users, like bubble gum and the ever-popular mango.

They’re also looking to limit sales of flavored nicotine pods only to those websites, vape shops, and other retailers that impose age restrictions. “We think flavored products represent greater risk to youth appeal, so when we’re looking at the public health value and redeeming qualities of products, we generally feel flavors have more to prove at this point,” outgoing Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in an interview. “They’re the ones driving youth use, so we want to do a proper evaluation through our assessment process.”

Companies like FLAVORIQ are also having to work around regulations like Europe’s EUTPD2 and the ban on some menthol products in Germany.

Ever shifting laws are another moving target for flavorists to contend with, but creative teams are working within the laws to create innovative and appealing products — and vapers are set to be the biggest winners. Converts like Daniel are finding more products that offer a pleasant flavor without the residue and lingering aftertaste. And while debate around the ethics of flavored smoking products will continue for the foreseeable future, innovation is helping make better experiences for those who would choose to smoke, or vape, regardless of the taste.

“Realistically if I didn’t enjoy the product, I’d find another one that I did,” said Daniel. “I don’t find the ‘Why am I even doing this?’ feeling nearly as much when I’m vaping.”