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VKA Australia
A VKA Australia flavourist setting out coded pink grapefruit and finger lime soda samples on a stainless tasting tray.

Beverage flavours, developed in Southport

Drinks for Australia and New Zealand,
made here.

VKA Australia has been on the ground in Australia developing beverage flavours for the food and drink makers across the Tasman since 1998. The bench, the application kitchen and the manufacturing plant all sit at one Southport site, which is why a sample leaves Southport days, not months, after the brief.

A VKA Australia flavourist setting out coded pink grapefruit and finger lime soda samples on a stainless tasting tray.

The brief, in plain terms

Drinks earn their place at the table.

Functional bases can bring bitterness, astringency and metallic edges. We build the flavour against the actual base. Health claims on your pack are yours to substantiate under Standard 1.2.7.

Bring us your beverage base and the flavour profile you want to build.

What we work on at the bench

Three capabilities, one Southport bench.

Flavour work for your botanical base, natural colours for shelf pull, and sugar reduction for drinkers who read the back of the bottle. Together they cover most of what a beverage brief asks for.

01

Botanicals

We source botanicals through our supplier network and build the flavour against your botanical base.

We trial the flavour in your botanical base and refine the taste against your brief.

02

Natural colours

Colour drives the first reach for the bottle. Drinkers want a vibrant glass and a clean back-of-pack at the same time. Our natural colour range is built to do both.

Stable across acidic pH ranges, resistant to light, compatible with the preservative systems used in mainstream Australian and New Zealand drinks.

See the colour portfolio
03

Sugar reduction

Drinkers want less sugar. They do not want less drink. Our sugar reduction work holds the sweetness curve, the mouthfeel and the flavour release at thirty to fifty per cent reduced sugar.

We work with natural sweetener blends and flavour modulators. The result tastes like the original, not like a diet version.

Sugar reduction work

Developing a still or sparkling water? See our natural flavours for water.

Bring us a brief

Send us your beverage brief.

Tell us the format, the drinker you have in mind and what the brief has to do. We will read it inside one Australian business day, sit with our flavourists, and come back with a sample. No contract to start.

Read in one Australian business day. No contract to start.