Beverages
Soft drinks, ready-to-drink coffee and tea, sparkling waters, juice blends, alcoholic and ready-to-drink mixers.
An Australian flavour house · Gold Coast, since 2002
Australian flavour, made on the Gold Coast.
We develop and make custom flavours for food and drink makers across Australia and New Zealand, from bench to scale on one Southport site.
A flavourist reads every brief inside one Australian business day. No contract to start.
Full range. One Australian supplier.
A flavour is rarely the whole recipe.
So beyond the flavour, we supply the colours, seasonings, sweeteners and ingredients that finish it. One supplier in Queensland, one purchase order, one set of documentation aligned to the Food Standards Code.
Australia does not grow every ingredient a flavour house needs. The ones that can be sourced here, we source here. The rest we bring in to spec through audited suppliers and finish in Southport.
By the numbers
23
years
of Australian flavour craft, in Southport since 2002.
1
business day
from brief to a flavourist on the line with a fit read.
AU NZ FSC
compliant
documentation aligned to the Food Standards Code on every brief we ship.
Why we're here
Flavour for Australia, done in Australia.
We opened a flavour bench in Southport in 2002 with a simple conviction. Flavour for this country has to be made in it. Twenty-three years on, that has not moved. The bench, the application kitchen and the plant share one site, and one flavourist carries your brief from the first read to the day it ships.
Industries we serve
Six categories, one bench.
Every flavour is developed at the Southport lab, trialled in the real application, and tuned to your brief. Six categories cover most of what a maker needs.
Dairy and desserts
Yoghurt, drinking yoghurt, ice-cream, frozen desserts, custard, milk drinks, plant-based dairy alternatives.
Bakery
Sweet bakery, savoury bakery, fillings, cremes, glazes, frozen dough and pastry applications.
Confectionery
Boiled sweets, chewing gum, chocolate inclusions, sugar reduction, masking and bitterness modulation.
Savoury and snacks
Seasonings, marinades, meat alternatives, soups, sauces, savoury snacks, ready meals.
Naturals across all six
Natural and nature-identical flavours, native Australian ingredients, clean-label declarations.
How we work
From your brief to a finished flavour.
A brief lands. Within one Queensland business day a flavourist has read it, scoped a fit, and replied. The same person stays with it through to ship.
Brief
Send us your application, target profile, format, regulatory context and timeline. A real flavourist reads it and replies inside one business day. No contract to start.
Develop
The flavourist who took your brief drafts, weighs and refines the formulation, against your reference if you have one.
Trial
We trial the flavour in your actual finished application in our Southport kitchen. We adjust, you re-taste, we iterate to the spec you sign off.
Ship
Manufactured in Southport, with full specifications, allergen and regulatory documentation. Re-orderable from the archive against the original batch record.
Services and applications
Work with an Australian flavour house.
We develop and make flavour in Southport, Queensland, and supply it across Australia and New Zealand. Start with the service you need, or go straight to your application.
Native Australian flavours
We work with the ingredients that grow here.
Native Australian botanicals are a growing part of our work. We source through regional growers along the east coast, bring them in fresh, audit them on arrival, and build them into flavours that taste of where they are made.
Golden wattle
Warm honey, almond, mild roasted notes
South-east Australia, regional growers
Lemon myrtle
Bright lemon, lemongrass, eucalypt undertone
Sub-tropical Queensland and NSW
Finger lime
Crisp citrus burst, sherbet pop
Queensland and northern NSW rainforest
Tasmanian pepperberry
Berry sweetness with a peppered finish
Tasmanian highland forests
Davidson plum
Tart wild plum, native cherry depth
Northern NSW and southern Queensland
Why we have to be here
Our work is shaped by this country before we ever open a bottle.
The native palette comes from the rainforests and hinterland of the east coast. The climate is the southern subtropics. Our read on what an Australian table wants comes from being part of one. None of that travels from a head office on another continent. So we built the bench, the kitchen and the plant here, and have run them from Southport since 2002.
‘Great flavour does not imitate. It captures the essence of the real thing and makes it unforgettable.’
Victor Koh
Frequently asked
What buyers ask us first.
- What is a flavour house?
- A flavour house develops custom flavour systems for food and beverage manufacturers. Unlike an ingredient supplier, a flavour house does not sell off-the-shelf SKUs. We take a brief, formulate a flavour that meets it, trial it in the finished application, and ship it to you under your own coded label. VKA Australia has done this from Southport, Queensland since 2002, and on top of custom flavour development we also supply the colours, seasonings, sweeteners, cocoa, coffee and functional ingredients that finished recipes need.
- Do you make natural, nature-identical, or artificial flavours?
- All three, depending on what the brief calls for. Natural flavours come from a botanical or animal source through traditional processes. Nature-identical flavours have the same molecular structure but are produced synthetically. Artificial flavours have no natural equivalent. Each has a place. We tell you which path fits your application, your regulatory context and your shelf-life target, and why.
- Do you use Australian native ingredients?
- Yes. The Australian native palette is a growing part of what we do. We source through regional Australian growers along the east coast for lemon myrtle, finger lime, golden wattle, Tasmanian pepperberry, davidson plum, anise myrtle and several more.
- Can I buy colours, seasonings, sweeteners, cocoa or coffee from you as well?
- Yes. Beyond custom flavour development, we supply the colours, seasonings, sweeteners, cocoa, coffee and functional ingredients that finished recipes need. One supplier, one purchase order, one set of documentation. Australia does not grow every ingredient a flavour house needs; the ones that can be sourced here we source here, the rest we bring in to spec through audited suppliers and finish in Southport.
- What goes in a flavour brief?
- The application (the actual finished product), the target flavour profile or a reference sample you can send, the format you need (liquid, powder, emulsion, encapsulated), the regulatory context (natural or nature-identical, halal, kosher, organic, allergen targets), an estimate of annual volume, and your timeline. If you have less than that, send what you have. We will come back with the questions we need to answer.
- How fast can you read a brief?
- Inside one Australian business day. A real flavourist on our Southport team reads every brief we receive, scopes a fit, and replies. The same flavourist stays on the line through the development that follows.
- Will my formulation be exclusive to me?
- A custom development is built for your application from your brief, and we treat the formulation as yours. The specific terms of exclusivity, any hold-back period, and IP ownership get written into the development agreement at the point of commissioning. What we shake hands on goes on the page.
- Can you scale from pilot batch to production volumes?
- Yes. Our Southport site runs from pilot quantities for early trial through to production-batch manufacture, with the same formulation file and documentation moving through every batch size.
- What is the minimum order size?
- Custom development minimums depend on the application, the format and the brief. We work with everything from small-batch artisans to national brands. Send your brief and we will scope it against your volumes.
- Do you provide allergen and regulatory documentation?
- Yes. Every formulation ships with a specification sheet, allergen declaration, and documentation aligned to the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code. If your brief requires halal, kosher, organic, vegan or other certification on the finished flavour, we discuss what is available before development starts.
- Do I need a contract to send you a brief?
- No. Send your brief, we read it, and if we see a fit we come back with a development plan. Contracting happens at the point of commissioning a formulation, not at the point of conversation.
Send us a brief.
A flavourist on our Southport team reads every brief within one Australian business day. No contract to start the conversation.
Or write directly to sales@vka.au.