BSF’s News Digest January - February 2026 ¦ Selector Ján Peťka
In the spotlight
The new flavor pipeline: How social media is rewriting the rules of food and beverage innovation | Food Dive
As trends go viral, flavor development timelines are being put to the test.
Most mass spectrometers can process just a few molecules at once: Reengineered prototype does a billion simultaneously | Phys.org
Mass spectrometry is already a powerful tool for determining what kind and how many molecules are present in a given sample. But most instruments still analyze their molecules one or just a few at a time, an approach that is inefficient and costly, and in which rare, but significant molecules can easily fall between the cracks.
Locking in flavor: Aroma chemistry and spray drying encapsulation strategies for stable food applications | Food Chemistry
Recent advances in formulation design, including mixed biopolymer systems and surfactants, have achieved efficiencies from ∼50% to over 90%, while improving stability and controlled release. Key challenges remain in scale-up, long-term stability, standardization, and sustainability.
VR headsets may soon offer real smell experiences I New Atlas
New wearable scent device enhances virtual reality immersion, blending fragrances to match virtual environments for a realistic sensory experience.
AromaGen: Interactive Generation of Rich Olfactory Experiences with Multimodal Language Models I arxiv
AromaGen is an AI-powered wearable interface for real-time, general-purpose aroma generation from free-form text, image, or speech inputs AromaGen is powered by a multimodal LLM that leverages latent olfactory knowledge to map semantic inputs to structured mixtures of 12 carefully selected base odorants, released through a neck-worn dispenser. This closed-loop pipeline enables intuitive, semantically driven aroma generation without any sensor measurements or chemical specifications.
Gene editing removes grapefruit bitterness I Refractor.io
Scientists use CRISPR gene editing to eliminate bitterness in grapefruits, potentially opening new markets and making citrus more appealing.
The race to reinvent cocoa: lab-grown chocolate and cocoa alternatives | Bakery&Snacks
Scientists and startups are reinventing cocoa using lab-grown cacao cells and fermentation, as the chocolate industry searches for new ingredient solutions.
Kami Newton - Flavour perception, sensory science, how to taste spirits I YouTube
Kami Newton is a flavour expert, sensory analyst, and founder of Sensory Advantage, whose career took him from wine shelves at Oddbins to leading tasting panels at the Scotch Malt Whisky Society — and eventually to one of the most fascinating corners of the drinks world: the gap between chemistry and perception.
Kokumi substances as taste modulators: Sensory properties and molecular mechanisms | Chemical Senses
Here, we review the concept of kokumi and studies on the functionality of kokumi substances, their chemical diversity, and the molecular mechanisms of their action. A more detailed scientific understanding of kokumi substances may contribute to improvements in food palatability and the development of foods with less salt, sugar, and fat, providing health benefits.
Grounding olfactory perception in language: Benchmarks and models for generating natural language odor descriptions | bioRxiv
Recent advancements in deep learning have improved the prediction of odorant perception from molecular structures, although current models are limited to fixed vocabularies and lack large-scale olfactory datasets. A novel model, CIRANO (Chemical Information Recognition and Annotation Network for Odors), generates free-form descriptions from molecular structures, achieving human-comparable performance. Additionally, using an invertible SBERT model, this research produces neural-to-text predictions aligned with human descriptions, establishing a framework for generating and assessing natural language olfactory descriptions.
Sugar-free reformulation: How brands rebuild sweetness I Food Navigator
How food and drink brands are reducing sugar without sacrificing taste, texture or clean labels – from rare sugars and fibres to precision fermentation and layered sweetness systems.
Locking in flavor: Aroma chemistry and spray drying encapsulation strategies for stable food applications I Food Chemistry
This review analyzes over 50 experimental and review studies from the past two decades, focusing on common flavor compounds, their chemical characteristics, and encapsulation strategies.
Texture innovation: The future of confectionery I Confectionery News
Discover how texture is reshaping the confectionery industry, from viral freeze‑dried candies to multi‑sensory chocolate innovations. Explore emerging trends, consumer drivers and new opportunities for brands to stand out.
Modern soda I Beverage Daily
The evolution of modern soda is significantly impacting the broader beverage category, with benefits such as functional ingredients spreading to products like teas and sparkling waters.
Engineering smell: Graphene-based volatile release enables systematic olfactory optimization | ChemRxiv
Here we show that graphene/polymer composites, open-cell foams produced by polymerizing graphene-stabilized emulsions, function as electrically switchable volatile release elements. Graphene’s negligible thermal mass confines heating to the monolayer surface, volatilizing compounds from terpenes to waxy solids (boiling point >400 °C) at bulk temperatures of ~60 °C without degradation. Pulsed operation at 1 kHz increases release rates 2–4-fold over DC while halving energy input. Six independently controlled channels deliver complex mixtures with compositional accuracy within 5% of target ratios over hours of continuous operation, and transition between formulations in under 30 seconds.
Ripe note engineering: sensory definition, molecular mapping, and precision flavor formulation I Flavorist.com
The “ripe” note is one of the core flavor attributes that the Society of Flavor Chemists expects all certified flavorists to understand and control. Mastery of this note is essential for accurately formulating fruit flavors such as mango, apple, and strawberry, where the perception of ripeness plays a critical role in overall flavor authenticity and quality.
Elucidating odorant masking effects in food matrices through olfactory receptor-based profiling | Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
Dynamic interactions among aroma compounds, particularly through odorant masking, significantly influence the flavor profiles of thermally processed foods. This study explored the sensory masking between 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine and l-menthol. The olfactory receptors OR5K1 and OR2W1 were identified as responsive receptors for these compounds, respectively. Both compounds demonstrated mutual inhibitory effects on their receptor signaling. Molecular modeling suggested they competitively bind to the same orthosteric pocket, providing insights into their inhibitory effects and enhancing the understanding of flavor perception at a molecular level.
Your brain can trick you into liking artificial sweeteners | ScienceDaily
Your brain might be quietly deciding what tastes good before you even take a sip. Researchers found that simply changing what people thought they were drinking—sugar or artificial sweetener—could dramatically shift how much they enjoyed it. When participants believed a drink had artificial sweeteners, real sugar tasted less enjoyable, but when they expected sugar, even artificially sweetened drinks became more pleasurable.
How aroma affects honey’s sweetness I IFT.org
Michigan State University researcher Emily Mayhew researched the role that aroma plays in determining the sweetness of honey. “Effectively, we’re getting 23% to 43% sweetness enhancement because of the aromas that are present in the honey,” says Mayhew.
How chemists engineer the signature smells of luxury perfumes | Scientific American
At Givaudan and IFF, chemists build—and safeguard—new aroma molecules tightly linked to emotion and memory
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