Reflections of a Retired Flavorist Before He Forgets: Raspberry

In the late 1930s when we first had an opportunity to evaluate flavors, the standard for raspberry was a Fritzsche Brothers (prior to acquisition of Dodge & Olcott, and they being acquired by Givaudan) flavor. It was dependent on ionones; was rather floral with essential oils and high in esters—isobutyl acetate seemed to predominate. Methyl sulfide was an important topnote.

In the late 1940s, after our military service and return to the industry, we were employed by Van Ameringen-Haebler (who later merged with Polak & Schwartz to form IFF) and was delighted to learn that they apparently had done some basic work on raspberry volatiles. We encouraged our superior, Dr. James McGlumphy, to publish and when be was asked to give a talk at the International FoodTechnologists (IFT) Convention on the volatiles of fruit, he agreed if I would do the literature search for him. In this search, an article by Coppens and Hoejenbos of PFW, Holland (since acquired by Hercules) was discovered. Their findings were remarkably similar to the alleged VAH staff work so Dr. McGlumphy had little new to report. Nevertheless, his talk was well received.

Some years later, we bad the opportunity to discuss the Coppens and Hoejenbos work with Ernst Polak. He claimed the key components discovered were never disclosed, but the impetus for publishing was governmental concerns that were arising about the safety of flavoring ingredients and PFW’S desire to show that these components were innocuous and similar to those found naturally.

Click to download the complete article.

More in Ingredients