Formulating AG1 for the Senses
It’s an unfortunate fact that many nutritionally beneficial ingredients come with some kind of off-putting sensory aspect, like a gritty texture or earthy taste. For AG1 to be a habit you can enjoy every morning, our R&D team needs to spend as much time thinking about what AG1 doesn’t look, smell, taste, and feel like as what it does. “Nothing makes me happier than someone trying AG1, expecting it to taste like a mowed lawn, and instead saying, ‘It’s actually pretty good!’” says flavorist Glenn Kraemer.
“AG1 is a high-quality product. But people aren’t going to drink it every day if they don’t like the way that it tastes, smells, or feels in their mouths,” says Morgan Young, who works in AG1’s product-development lab.
Though we are continuously working to improve our formula as new research emerges, flavor and texture are crucial elements that we aim to keep consistent. You can expect a focus on upholding quality and taste with every batch of your Daily Health Drink, no matter what upgraded ingredients have been added.
Here, a deep dive on what that consistency means:
More than half the functional ingredients in AG1 have a sensory impact on the end product. Just as teams of scientists and researchers at AG1 are dedicated to defining and refining the product’s formula to make sure that it’s as comprehensive as possible, it’s the sensory panelist’s job to consider 75+ ingredients — all with their own unique tastes, textures, and smells — and blend them together in a way that results in an appealing product.
They do that by testing hundreds of versions of every ingredient from different suppliers that have been thoroughly vetted for functional benefits and sourcing practices — and carefully selected by AG1’s teams of scientists and researchers for nutritional impact and bioavailability.
“There’s so much variation with ingredients that come from nature,” explains Kraemer. “With something like pea protein, you can try multiple versions, and they’ll all taste, smell, and look quite a bit different from each other.” The sensory profile of an ingredient like ashwagandha, for example, can range dramatically from cocoa to creamy to extremely bitter. The team orders multiple versions of pea protein — or bromelain, or wheat grass or barley — from the list of suppliers provided by the procurement team, that meet their rigorous quality and safety standards.
The process of narrowing down the options is slow, scientific, and carefully controlled. “The most that you can effectively evaluate at once, without getting fatigued, is about five samples,” says Kraemer. The team sniffs and tastes every sample to eliminate the versions of established ingredients that won’t mesh well with the final product. Less than 10% make it past the first round. After that, to reduce individual subjectivity, a larger panel of expert tasters is included to help decide which ones will make the cut. The team obsesses over “the appearance, and how well it blends into water, and then goes deep into the smell and the taste,” says Kraemer.
Over 80% of the way we perceive taste actually comes from our sense of smell. “Sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami are the five basic senses that you actually taste. Everything else is actually smell,” Kraemer explains.
Because smell is so important — and so subjective — the team created a list of more than 30 descriptors to evaluate ingredients more objectively and decrease ambiguity. The list sounds like a catalog of creatively named paint swatches: “pineapple,” “vegetative,” “grassy”, and “tropical” are some “good ones”; “algae,” “pond,” “barnyard”, and “hay” should be avoided. For each sensory aspect, detail is key: If a taster is picking up a note of spinach, they have to pinpoint whether it’s canned, fresh, or cooked.
“Our goal is for AG1 to taste, smell, and look natural, refreshing, and not overly flavored,” says Kraemer. “The best compliment I’ve heard about the taste of AG1 is that it stands out from similar products.” Young adds, “People drink AG1 for its nutritional benefits, so the sensory profile should be an added benefit that doesn’t take anything away from that experience.” Often, it comes down to neutrality. Tasters are not looking for sensory “standouts,” but the exact opposite: ingredients that blend into the formula without drawing attention to themselves. Even though the customer comes for the nutritional benefits, Young says, “We want to ensure they’re pleasantly surprised by the sensory experience of the product.”