There are some jobs which evoke envy in all your friends, and being a flavour guru for some of the world's leading confectionery brands is one of them. Taste tester, flavour guru, chocolatier, no matter what you call it - this is a job everyone wants.
Taste testing is not your usual job though and it is unlikely that you’ll find this application on LinkedIn or Indeed. Instead it takes years of perfecting your craft and a little bit of luck to land this dreamy role as product inventor for an ice cream or chocolate giant.
That being said, there is no right or wrong way to become a flavour guru, the DailyRecord spoke to the geniuses behind the Tony’s Chocolonely and Ben & Jerry’s collaboration, Chocolatey Love-A-Fair, for insight into their journeys. While the pathway to becoming a flavour guru took lots of hard work and some science, passion for food was a driving force behind their careers.
Read more: The surprisingly delicious Ben & Jerry's flavour that will never be sold
Bas Klarenbeek’s route to become Count Chocula at Tony’s was a chocolate dipped adventure, filled with competitions and professional training from a young age. He said: “I started studying culinary arts for chocolate and pastry,” ditching university to pursue his love of baking as a teenager.
“After several competitions in pastry and chocolate, I started to be more interested in food technology. So I did some courses in Spain and other places around the world,” he explained. Tony’s was not always the plan but the brand was so blown away with his creativity that they called him after the finals of a competition and by October 2018, Bas had begun creating for the ethical chocolate company.
For Tsega Abate, a flavour guru for ice cream phenomenon Ben & Jerry’s, creating had a more scientific approach, she said: “I did a science related degree, so based on that I had a placement at Unilever while I was still studying.” Unilever own Ben & Jerry's but also competitors Cornetto, Magnum, and Carte D'Or and other food brands like Marmite, Pot Noodle and Colman's.
This led to a fascination with food and flavours, combining her existing love of chocolate with food technology and product development which became “a passion” for her. “When I finished my engineering degree, I then went back to food technology and managed to get into Ben & Jerry’s,” she said.
Before this self-confessed chocoholic landed her dream job, she also worked in the beverage industry inventing tea and herbal infusions. While this hasn’t translated into tea flavoured ice cream, Tsega carries her experience with her, she said: “Creating flavours is a lot of culinary passion, a lot of art, but a bit of science as well.”
“It’s definitely a job worth doing …it is as fun as it sounds,” said Tsega. To all the aspiring flavour gurus out there, she advised: “if culinary creativity is something [you're] passionate about, it’s something to explore really.”
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