Northern NSW rainforest understorey at dawn

Reading · From the Southport bench

Reading from the Australian bench.

Working notes on the craft of flavour for Australia and New Zealand. What we are learning at the bench, what we are seeing in the food and drink that ships with our flavours, and the science behind it. Written for you if you buy, formulate or develop food and drink and care about how a flavour gets made.

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We read every brief inside one Australian business day. No contract to start.

A VKA team member in gloves checking the label on an amber flavour bottle

Regulation13 October 2026

Alcohol in Flavourings and Non-Alcoholic Drinks: A Buyer's Guide for Australia and New Zealand

The alcohol thresholds in Standard 2.7.1, the definition of non-alcoholic beverage, the absence of an alcohol-free definition in the Standards reviewed, the energy labelling transition, and questions for a flavour supplier.

14 min readRead article

Two flavourists discussing a brief at the Southport bench

Education7 min read

What Is a Flavour House? A Buyer's Guide for Australia and New Zealand

What a flavour house does, who works on your brief, how the Food Standards Code treats flavourings, and what to prepare for development and supply.

5 October 2026

A rack of twelve amber sample bottles on the VKA Australia bench, one uncapped beside a smelling strip.

Regulation5 min read

Gluten-Free Claims and Flavourings: Australian Rules

Australian gluten-free and low-gluten claim conditions, cereal allergen declarations and the wheat glucose syrup exemption for flavour buyers.

3 October 2026

A sealed blue drum and a sample bag of pale liquid beside a specification sheet on a stainless inspection table in a raw-material store

Procurement14 min read

Importing Flavourings into Australia and New Zealand: A Buyer's Guide

What a food maker takes on when importing a flavouring into Australia or New Zealand: risk food, biosecurity, registered importer duties and supplier questions.

3 October 2026

A person in a lab coat tasting a yoghurt-style sample with mango, with a flavour bottle and an open notebook on the bench

Education9 min read

Plant-Based Flavour: Masking the Off-Notes in Meat and Dairy Alternatives

Pea and soy proteins give plant-based meat and dairy their structure, and they bring beany, grassy, bitter and astringent off-notes with them. A guide to where those off-notes come from and how to assess processing, masking and flavour choices in your finished product.

23 September 2026

A labelling station at VKA Australia applying labels to finished flavour bottles, where what a pack declares is set

Insights9 min read

What Clean Label Means for the Flavour on Your Pack

Clean label is everywhere in food briefs and defined nowhere in law. A guide to what the peer-reviewed literature actually says, how the Food Standards Code builds your ingredient declaration, and where your flavour choice changes the way the back of the pack reads.

23 June 2026

A flavourist part-way through a reformulation on the VKA Australia bench, weighing components against a balance readout while a recipe's nutrition figures change

Insights9 min read

Reformulating for a Better Health Star Rating

The Health Star Rating is still voluntary, and FSANZ is consulting on whether that should change. A practical guide to how the rating is calculated, which nutrients move the score, and how flavour and masking lift your product's stars without losing the shoppers who already buy it.

17 June 2026

A range of sugars and alternative sweeteners in the VKA Australia ingredient library, the raw materials a sugar-reduction brief works with.

Education8 min read

Taking Sugar Out Without Taking the Taste

Cutting sugar is harder than it looks, because sugar does far more in a recipe than taste sweet. A factual guide to why sugar is difficult to remove, the techniques that work, the categories where it matters most, and how a flavour house helps you reformulate.

16 June 2026

A formulation notebook open on a VKA Australia compounding bench beside amber sample bottles, where claim targets and formulas are worked out together

Regulation9 min read

What FSANZ Rules Require for Flavour Labelling and Natural Claims

The Food Standards Code defines a flavouring substance and sets exactly how it is declared, but it never defines the word natural. A clause-by-clause guide to the permission chain, the declaration rule, the allergen carve-outs and the consumer law that actually governs a natural claim on your products in Australia and New Zealand.

11 June 2026

Packed flavour supply drums and containers staged for dispatch at VKA Australia, the reorder end of the MOQ and lead-time conversation

Procurement6 min read

What Drives Flavour MOQs and Lead Times in Australia

What drives flavour minimum order quantities and lead times: batch size, format, development rounds, sourcing and freight.

11 June 2026

A cross-section of finger lime showing its caviar-like vesicles, an Australian native source for natural flavour development at the VKA Australia bench

Education9 min read

What Counts as a Natural Flavour Under the Food Standards Code

Most guides to natural flavours answer for the US or the EU and miss what applies in Australia and New Zealand. A clause-level guide to what the Food Standards Code defines, what it leaves out, and which law actually governs the word natural on your pack.

30 May 2026

A GC-MS instrument on VKA's analytical bench, where flavour molecules are identified and assessed

Education8 min read

What the Food Standards Code Says About Natural, Nature-Identical and Artificial Flavours

The three-way split is real in some markets and absent in others. A clause-level guide to what the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code actually defines, what Codex, the EU, the US and Singapore each do instead, and where a natural claim is policed in Australia.

30 May 2026

A lemon-myrtle branch in flower from the VKA Australia native-botanical library, the kind of east-coast native source we build native-botanical flavours from

Education9 min read

Working With Australian Native Botanical Flavours

Lemon myrtle, finger lime, wattleseed, pepperberry and Davidson plum are moving from chef-driven menus into commercial food and beverage briefs. A factual guide to the ingredients, the responsible-sourcing framework, and how an Australian flavour house thinks about working with them.

30 May 2026

A controlled tasting of a savoury hot soup in the VKA Australia applications kitchen, the kind of high-sodium application that salt-reduction work supports

Education8 min read

Cutting Salt Without Losing Flavour

Cutting salt is harder than it looks, because sodium does far more in a recipe than taste salty. A factual guide to why salt is difficult to remove, the techniques that work, the categories where it matters most, and how a flavour house helps you reformulate.

29 May 2026

A spoon-and-pot yoghurt evaluation on the VKA Australia application bench, the dairy mouthfeel that fat-reduction work has to keep while using less

Education8 min read

Reducing Fat While Keeping the Texture

Taking fat out of a recipe is hard, because fat does far more than add calories. A factual guide to why fat is difficult to remove, the technique families that work, the categories where it matters most, and how a flavour house helps you reformulate.

29 May 2026

A magnetic stir-plate and stir-bar dispersing a flavour blend on the VKA Australia compounding bench, the workhorse mix step behind masking trials

Education9 min read

Taming Bitterness and Off-Notes With Flavour Masking

Bitterness, metallic notes and alcohol burn are three different mechanisms, and each answers to a different tool. A fact-dense guide to the receptor science behind masking, the measured process levers that remove an off-note at source, and how the work is declared on an Australian label.

29 May 2026

Six tasting glasses laid out in the VKA Australia application kitchen

Education8 min read

What Goes Into Flavouring a Beverage

Flavouring a drink is a different problem from flavouring a solid food. A factual guide to the beverage categories, the technical challenges unique to liquids, the formats flavours come in, and how to brief a flavour house for a drink.

29 May 2026

A vanilla-bean alongside a cream smelling strip on a sensory bench, the canonical reference for evaluating a vanilla extract or a vanilla flavour

Education7 min read

Vanilla Extract or Vanilla Flavour, and When to Use Each

Vanilla extract and vanilla flavouring are different products, regulated differently, priced differently, and made for different jobs. A guide to choosing between them for products made in Australia and New Zealand.

27 May 2026

Talk to the bench

Reading is a starting point. The work starts with your brief.

If something in here matches what you are working on, send us the brief. A flavourist at the Southport bench reads every brief inside one Australian business day.

Send us your brief

No contract to start.