How exactly do flavor and function mix? Here's an in-depth dive into Scott Zimmermann's interview on his insider tips and tricks to flavoring the perfect functional beverage.
Watch his full interview
From ancient tea to the rise of globally inspired wellness drinks, the evolution of functional beverages is rooted in centuries of culture and innovation. But today’s market demands more than tradition: it demands precision and scientific expertise. Formulating a functional beverage is more complex than it used to be. It’s time-consuming, complicated, and can feel overwhelming to those who have never done it before.
What does it take to build a functional beverage? How has the industry changed over the decades, and how do you keep up with the trends? We sat down with our very own Scott Zimmermann, Sensapure’s Master of Flavors, and talked to him about the past, present, and future of functional beverage formulation.
Where did functional beverages begin? If we go back 20, 40, 60 years, what functional beverage would be on the shelves? It turns out to find the beginning of functional beverages we need to go back far more than 60 years.
Tea drinkers take gold for the oldest functional beverage in history, going back to approximately 2700 BCE. It wasn’t until approximately 850 AD that the next functional beverage hit the scene: coffee. People have been relying on drinks as a source of energy, health, wellness, and mood enhancement for centuries, millennia even.
Hundreds of brands, shops, and companies have put their own spin on tea and coffee, capitalizing on its rich history and proven effectiveness. But in 1965 a new functional drink, the first modern functional drink, was developed at the University of Florida College of Medicine. The drink was designed to balance electrolytes and replace lost nutrients in college athletes.
They called it Gatorade.
And just like that, functional beverages got a long overdue facelift. Soft drinks, water, coffee, and tea weren’t the only options anymore. Suddenly, there was something new formulated for a specific target audience—athletes—and for a specific purpose—recovery and hydration.
This was the beginning of the modern era of functional beverages, and the industry hasn’t been the same since.
For a better understanding of just how much the beverage industry has changed over the years, we sat down with Scott Zimmermann, the Master of Flavors here at Sensapure, and asked him to walk us through his life in flavors.
Zimmermann started working in flavors because of his father: a successful flavorist and perfumer. Scott has more than 42 years of industry experience, has traveled all over the world, and expertly balances the art and science of flavor creation.
“I had the unique privilege of also having a perfumer [his father] train me, and thus, my love for making flavors that smell really nice, too [was born]. We all have a style. All of the senior master flavorists all have their unique style.”
— Scott Zimmermann, Master Flavorist
After a few minutes of speaking with him, it became clear that the beverage industry is not what it used to be. Significant changes include:
Scott explains, “It’s like there was a world of flavoring beverages up until the mid to late 80’s, and now there’s the new world.”
One of the most notable changes Zimmermann expresses is the sheer number of functional beverage options in the market now. What used to be limited to a select number of drinks has exploded over the past few decades to an astronomical number. He said, “When you walk into a Maverick or a Harmons or a Whole Foods…you’ve got walls of refrigerated beverages. Of immune beverages, hydration beverages, CBD beverages, energy beverages… It’s a different world.”
What started as tea and coffee morphed into the soft drink industry. Soft drinks, lemonades, and juices were all popular, but they weren’t focused on function; they focused on enjoyment. Before functional beverages became mainstream, companies were faced with an insurmountable question: How do you compete against giants like The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo?
These corporations have existed for over a century. Every restaurant hosts one of the two product lines. Coca-Cola dominates Disney Parks and Pepsi has Universal Studios. Coca-Cola flies Delta and Pepsi flies American.
The answer was not to create another cola. The answer was Red Bull.
Red Bull wasn’t the first mainstream functional beverage; that credit goes to Gatorade. It wasn’t even the first energy drink; that belongs to Lipovitan D. But they were the first to sell a lifestyle.
Rum and Coke, meet the vodka Red Bull.
Sponsoring extreme sports and athletes, like Formula One racer Gerhard Berger, the brand demonstrated their vision: Create a whole new drink category for the adventurous daredevils.
You can’t replicate Red Bull’s success overnight—even they had challenges and setbacks that took years to overcome—but you can learn from them. Namely, to succeed, you must have a clear vision. Know what you want to formulate and who you want to formulate it for.
“Identify, is your product unique? Don’t compete with everything else that’s out there because you’re going to be battling for shelf space… Find your niche.”
— Scott Zimmermann, Master Flavorist
You don’t need to know everything about your product before you start, but you do need to have a vision. Sensapure specializes in helping budding brands take their idea and build it into a best-selling product.
Zimmermann continues, “We describe [it as] concierge service. We’ll take you from beginning to end. We’ll help…recommend co-mans for you. We’ll help recommend canners or packagers… We can be an all-encompassing sort of concierge service.”
Now that we know the model, let’s dive into the top trends and help you find a dynamite flavor for your new niche. In another article, we outlined the trending active ingredients impacting the industry, so today we’ll be talking all about flavor. After all, “Everybody will buy your new beverage once out of curiosity. [We] want people to be buying it 20 times, 30 times, 40 times. And that will come down to the flavor.”
— Scott Zimmermann, Master Flavorist
Taste is, and always will be, the most important element of a successful functional beverage. More than price, more than trends, more than label claims. That’s why it’s so important to get it right.
Consumers are leaning more towards healthy food choices, for function and for wellness benefits. As a result, flavors that sound healthier are gaining popularity.
For years, blue raspberry used to be the main berry staple flavor. Whether it was in cotton candy, gummies, popsicles, or energy drinks, blue raspberry was the go-to berry. With the rise of health-conscious and wellness trends in functional beverages, consumers are pulling away from flavors that sound “unhealthy.” Blue raspberries are associated with candy because they are a sweeter, less tart version of raspberries, and they typically are used in highly sweet applications, thus making blue raspberries taste like candy.
But a new berry is gunning for the top spot, and that’s blackberry.
According to Flavor Trends, the most common flavor profile across the food and beverage industry in 2024 was fruit flavors. 38% of the flavor categories trending are fruit flavors, and a prominent flavor within that category is, you guessed it, blackberry.
What makes blackberries so great?
Crowned Vitaquest International’s 2025 Supplement Flavor of the Year, lychee is the next trending flavor to watch out for. When discussing the trending flavors with Zimmermann, he expressed his excitement for the new flavors emerging in the functional beverage space.
“When I was a kid, there wasn’t a lychee mango beverage. There was root beer, cream soda, orange, and if you were lucky, strawberry. Now, I rarely get requests for those basic flavors. …In terms of flavor pairings, all bets are off now.”
Reasons for lychee’s rise in popularity include:
When you take a step back and look at all the trends of functional beverages, the biggest ones affecting the industry are:
Blackberries are a trending flavor because they satisfy three of the industry trends: health and wellness, perceived health benefits, and bold flavor. However, blackberries are not satisfying the global flavor profile trend. Lychees satisfy the global flavor trend, but the flavor is quite mild. It’s not bold or complex enough in its flavor profile.
Trends come and go; it’s in their nature. This year, the trendy flavor is lychee, and next year it will change. However, we’re noticing three trends that are sticking around — three flavor profiles that don’t want to go away just yet.
For a flavor trend to have staying power, it needs to be able to satisfy multiple industry needs simultaneously. Passionfruit is a flavor that’s firing on all cylinders.
Passionfruit is naturally acidic, tart, and strong in flavor. Because of this, it works well with strong-tasting and off-putting active ingredients.
For example, kombucha is a fermented drink that is naturally tart, vinegary, and acidic. By flavoring kombucha with passionfruit, suddenly the tartness of the base isn’t off-putting; it’s exciting because passionfruit is supposed to be tart.
If you were to try flavoring kombucha with chocolate, it wouldn’t work. Chocolate is smooth, creamy, and sweet. Kombucha is the direct opposite: sharp, tangy, acidic. To flavor kombucha, you need to use a flavor that works with the natural taste, instead of against it.
“When kombucha first started hitting the shelves, maybe 10, 12 years ago, they were either unflavored, or they just used a bit of juice concentrate. Now…we get tropical flavors.”
— Scott Zimmermann, Master Flavorist
Here are a few of our favorite passionfruit flavor pairings:
The second flavor with staying power is mango. It’s fun, fresh, exotic, and easy to work with. Mango is quickly becoming the new go-to flavor, more than strawberry, more than lemon. When asked about what flavors are gaining popularity, Zimmermann talked about the rise of mango-flavored beverages and how it’s no longer a seasonal or trending flavor. “You might drink a mango beverage in December; you might drink a mango beverage in July.” It’s a flavor that is popping up in all beverages, year-round.
What is it about mango that keeps people coming back for more?
This new flavor powerhouse can be used individually or paired with other flavors. Some of our favorite mango pairings include:
The last trend becoming an industry staple is sweet heat flavors. Pair a sweet profile, like fruit or chocolate or vanilla, with a spicy profile, like chai or ginger or jalapeno. The combination works so well because it combines the familiar with the exciting.
“Sweet heat flavors are always among my favorites,” Zimmermann stated when discussing his favorite flavors to work on. “I might pair a jalapeno with a blueberry… Thankfully, the palate of most North Americans is much more tolerant of savory and spice [as opposed to 20 years ago], but it’s still best to pair [spice] with something sweet that sort of tones down some of the boldness and aggressiveness of the heat… So, we might do a habanero coconut… You get some of the heat, but then the soft, creaminess of the coconut sort of tames that flavor.”
Here are a few of our favorite sweet heat flavor pairings:
Of course, we can’t talk about sweet heat combos without mentioning the drink that started it all: the infamous pumpkin spice latte.
In the fall of 2003, Starbucks introduced a new seasonal drink that quickly developed into a crowd favorite. Pumpkin spice existed before 2003; it was used in coffees and confectioneries, but Starbuck’s launch created an entirely new season dedicated to the drink. Its popularity has grown over the past 20 years to the point where they sell approximately 20 million pumpkin spice lattes a year.
Now, other sweet heat flavor pairings are taking their place in the beverage industry. Like the other emerging flavor staples, sweet heat pairings satisfy the familiar with the exotic, bring an element of perceived health and wellness to the drink, and pair well with strong active ingredients.
It’s no wonder sweet heat flavors are becoming the new industry standout.
So, you have a niche and vision for your functional beverage, you know the flavor, you’ve selected your active ingredients; what’s next?
Well, now comes the hard part: formulating.
“The science of flavoring beverages has changed in that you cannot just, for [flavor chemists] at least, and certainly for applications people, you can’t just be a flavorist anymore. I also have to know the science of all the other ingredients in the product. If a customer is adding adaptogens, I have to know…what is it going to do? How is it going to interact if it’s carbonated or still? How will my flavor behave in that?”
— Scott Zimmermann, Master Flavorist
When discussing how flavoring and formulating beverages has changed over the years, Zimmermann expressed that the main difference between flavoring today versus 20 years ago is the required knowledge to begin the process.
R&D and flavor scientists need to understand every aspect of a functional beverage to successfully formulate. He elaborates, “We have to know the science …We have to understand the interaction of the ingredients together.”
He continues by explaining the difference between his father’s work as a flavorist decades ago and his work today. Zimmermann says, “The days when my dad was a flavorist and they just said, ‘Hey, we need a nice strawberry flavor,’ [he would then] make it, put it in a bottle, send it off. You’re done. Brief complete. It doesn’t work that way anymore.”
Formulating functional beverages is hard. It’s complicated. It’s precise and finicky and requires extreme expertise. Some common complications that face functional beverage formulations are:
This may appear to be a simple question, but the answer will take your beverage in two completely different directions. Carbonation changes the taste and texture of a beverage. Still beverages undergo different heat treatments and packaging processes that will change the flavor and alter the active ingredients. It’s vital to understand the changes that a functional beverage will undergo to formulate a great-tasting product.
Hot fill processing is typically used for still beverages and is heated to approximately 185-203°F. Heating a product to that temperature requires flavors and active ingredients that will not burn off. Alternatively, flash pasteurization is a rapid process at a lower temperature, thus requiring different flavor formulations. There’s also aseptic processing, tunnel pasteurization, retort processing, high-pressure non-thermal, etc. The way a beverage is packaged and preserved will change the formulation and require certain ingredients. Alternatively, your actives and flavor formulas can inform you of the method of packaging and processing.
It’s almost impossible to pinpoint the most important step in beverage formulation, but shelf-life stability is high on the list. The last thing you want is to launch a new beverage with a 12-month shelf life only to find out 8 months later the formulation breaks down. Taking the time to do the due diligence and test shelf-life stability will greatly increase the chances of success.
We already mentioned the importance of understanding what active ingredients taste like and how to use the natural tastes to your advantage. It takes skill, experience, and patience to flavor strong-tasting active ingredients.
All natural, vegan, organic, non-GMO project verified, kosher, halal...the list of label claims is extensive. Beverage formulators need to understand what it takes to meet the requirements of quality regulations and label claims. What does it mean to be Organic Compliant vs. Certified Organic? What does all-natural mean? What is the acceptable percentage of alcohol levels in a halal product? All these questions must be understood when building a product with label claims and regulatory requirements.
You may like your product, but will your target audience? Being able to administer sensory panels and evaluations on your product and making the appropriate revisions will greatly increase your chances of success.
“It’s incredibly sophisticated…it’s important for people to know that that simple can of protein beverage or that simple tetra pack of a processed beverage could take hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of iterations and R&D before it makes its way to the shelf.”
— Scott Zimmermann, Master Flavorist
It’s daunting, looking at this massive list of things you need to know, but that is why Sensapure has a full-scale beverage innovation center in-house. It’s hard, it’s time-consuming, and we can do it for you. Let us take your idea and build it into a best-in-class product.
The future of functional beverages belongs to those who can blend innovation, flavor, formulation, and science with consumer needs. Whether you are building the next hydration beverage or a globally inspired energy drink, it starts with strategy—and ends with flavor. At Sensapure, we’re here to help you every step of the way.
“For me, the most rewarding thing is knowing that two years ago, [a] customer came in with just an idea. And now, two years later, I’m going through Harmons, or Whole Foods…and there’s the product on the shelf. That’s the most rewarding part of it.”
— Scott Zimmermann, Master Flavorist
Historical Milestones:
Functional beverages trace back thousands of years with tea and coffee, but the modern era began in 1965 with Gatorade—a purpose-built hydration drink for athletes.
Brand Positioning:
Success in this competitive market requires more than a good formula. It takes a clear product vision, niche targeting, and lifestyle branding—exemplified by Red Bull’s disruptive entrance.
Flavor Trends for 2025:
Formulation Complexity:
Today’s flavorists must understand active ingredient behavior, heat processing, carbonation, shelf-life, and regulatory claims. Flavoring is no longer just about taste, it’s science.
Innovation Support:
Sensapure offers full-spectrum product development services—from flavor creation to packaging recommendations—to guide brands from idea to commercialization.
Request free flavor samples from our 1300+ existing flavors, or request a custom-made flavor for your next project!
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