Beyond Sweet: How Functional Sweet Browns Are Solving Formulation Challenges 

By: Angie Lantman 

Why Functional Sweet Browns 

Consumer demand for indulgence is at an all-time high. 

But this isn’t happening in isolation. 

This comes alongside evolving expectations for elevated multisensory experiences, cleaner labels, better-for-you, and a growing appetite for novel yet nostalgic offerings. All of which are forcing developers to explore innovative profiles across multiple trends simultaneously. 

But tackling these trends also entails solving a growing range of complex, compounding formulation challenges. 

Hurdles that make it harder to get an incredible tasting product across the finish line. 

On top of this, while great taste is necessary to stand out, it alone is no longer enough. 

Functional sweet brown flavors, however, do much more than simply offer authentic and indulgent profiles. 

They help to bridge formulation gaps, address challenges, and serve as the comprehensive taste differentiator these products desperately need. 

Functional Sweet Browns – More Than Dairy 

At Edlong, we’ve long been known as “the” experts in the authentic taste of dairy and it is something we take pride in. It’s this very experience and expertise that form the foundation for our functional sweet brown flavors. 

It’s also what sets them apart. 

Whether it’s classic sweet brown profiles like caramel, vanilla, and chocolate or dairy-forward options like brown butter and sweetened condensed milk, they all share the creamy comfort, indulgent richness, and layered deep brown notes loved by consumers worldwide. 

Understanding the building blocks of dairy down to the molecular level allows us to craft sweet brown profiles with greater complexity and authenticity. 

Think balanced caramels and chocolates with the buttery, creamy depth that only true dairy can provide. 

The crucial role dairy plays in indulgence allows us to expand this range even further and adapt to ongoing and future trends. 

This includes dairy-associated, adjacent, and complementary sweet brown profiles like speculoos (cookie butter), pistachio (Dubai chocolate), maple, marshmallow, and more. 

It’s also how we turn familiar favorites into elevated experiences. Like adding international flair to caramel with dulce de leche, cajeta, and cocada profiles. Or turning vanilla from a synonym for boring into the definition of luxury with French, Bourbon, or Tahitian varieties. 

However, what’s most impressive about our sweet browns is not their variety, depth, and authentic flavor profiles. It’s the additional functionality to help developers solve some of their toughest challenges that makes these special. 

This is why they’re not just flavors, but taste technologies tailored to each formulation’s needs. 

The most common of which is already in the name. 

Functional Sweet Browns–Enhancing Sweetness Perception 

Cleaner ingredients and better-for-you claims are quickly becoming a standard expectation for many. 

It’s no longer confined to any one place; it has become a truly global phenomenon.

For developers in markets like Mexico and other LATAM countries with similar government-mandated “black labels” on HFSS (High Fat Sugar & Salt) products, better-for-you formulations are now a necessity for survival. 

“In the Mexican market, the black seals are creating a big push for cleaner and healthier labels,” says Laura Enriquez, Principal Scientist – Global Applications at Edlong. 

“Parents, especially, are prioritizing products focused on sugar reduction, so they can feel better about giving them to their kids.” 

The obvious problem is that people, regardless of age, often crave these products because of their indulgent sweetness.   

Here is where incorporating functional sweet brown flavors into your sugar reduction strategy can make the difference. 

Through various sensory mechanisms, Edlong’s sweet brown profiles help to enhance sweetness perception without added sugar. 

Part of this is the natural sweetness associated with these profiles. Another factor is our ability to layer multiple flavor profiles, further increasing that perception. 

Flavors like honey, maple, vanilla, and condensed milk, for example, when included at low concentrations, can boost perceived sweetness without overtaking the other characterizing flavor notes. 

In addition to sweetness perception, mouthfeel also plays a primary role in how people experience indulgence. 

Functional Sweet Browns–Building Back Mouthfeel 

While fat content typically drives creaminess and mouthfeel, sugar content and brix levels also play a critical role. While fat content typically drives creaminess and mouthfeel, sugar content and brix levels also play a critical role.

In fact, according to Enriquez, mouthfeel also affects how we perceive sweetness. 

“When you remove fat, it’s natural that a formulation will feel less indulgent. Of course you’ll want to build back that richness and mouthfeel. And this is where these taste technologies excel. But when you remove sugar, it can also take away from the thick coating mouthfeel that you’ve come to expect. This is particularly true with beverages and desserts like puddings. When you remove sugar, that mouthfeel is reduced, but so is your perception of sweetness. However, our functional sweet brown flavors can help build back that creaminess, tricking your brain further boosting it’s sweetness perception.” 

Cracking the code of dairy mouthfeel enables us to leverage those compounds alongside flavor profiles to achieve a synergistic effect. One that enhances both perceived richness and sweetness. 

Improving and enhancing mouthfeel is one of the most common ways our functional sweet brown flavors give formulations an edge. 

But it’s not only HFSS reductions that can benefit from improved mouthfeel. 

Protein & Fiber 

“Developers in almost every country are looking for ways to increase protein. And now, more and more they’re looking at adding fiber as well,” explains Enriquez. 

She continues, “This is great from a claim perspective, but they can introduce texture challenges that negatively affect indulgence.” 

Functional sweet brown flavors help balance texture, restoring the smooth roundness these products need.  

Yet, textural issues aren’t even the main challenge that functional fortifications like protein introduce in a formulation matrix. 

Functional Sweet Browns—Masking Off Notes 

“It doesn’t matter if it’s animal protein like whey and casein, or plant-based protein like chickpea and pea; they usually create off-notes. Some may be cleaner than others, but even then, they are usually noticeable enough to require masking,” Enriquez says. 

At the end of the day, as much as people want functional ingredients like protein, that desire takes a back seat if it misses the mark on taste and indulgence. 

The authentic and delicious profiles of our functional sweet brown flavors make the perfect starting point for a solution. One that, in some applications, allows consumers to have their cake and enjoy eating it, too. 

While they can do much of the heavy lifting on their own, when paired with components of our industry-leading masking technologies, they become true game changers. 

As mentioned previously, by layering profiles and other technologies from our toolbox, we’re able to create tailored, comprehensive solutions. 

Solutions that work with the unique characteristics and challenges of a base for the most authentic and indulgent taste possible. 

This creates flavor that is consistent with and exceeds expectations. 

Consistency, that for reasons other than trends, could soon become more difficult to achieve for certain formulations 

Functional Sweet Browns—Cost & Taste Stability 

Since the start of the decade, cost and supply chain stability have remained constant sources of uncertainty. 

Every time volatility finally settles in one area, it plunges another into disarray.

Nowhere has this been clearer than in the ongoing cocoa crisis of recent years. 

Driven in part by unpredictable weather conditions and disease, cocoa prices climbed rapidly in 2024 and continued well into 2025. Even though they have recently fallen back to their baseline, the damage, for many developers, has already been done. Not to mention, prices may already be on the rise once again. 

Unfortunately, cocoa isn’t the only sweet brown staple commodity facing these issues. 

Vanilla & Coffee

Over 80% of the world’s vanilla is grown in Madagascar, with nearly all of it grown in tropical regions. In other words, the regions that are most likely to be affected by climate-driven changes in weather and temperature. 

Similarly, the whistle is being blown on the potential of an incoming coffee crisis. 

With the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reporting that worldwide average costs in 2024 climbed 38.8% over the previous year, it might already be underway. 

Between inclement weather and increasing temperatures, experts project that up to 20% of arabica-growing land may be unsuitable by 2050 

In the face of these realities, stabilizing not only costs and supply, but also batch-to-batch taste consistency becomes critical. 

It’s also another one of the ways functional sweet brown flavors can deliver for developers. 

The versatility and authenticity of these taste technologies provide brands with a reliable commodity reduction strategy. 

One that allows them to achieve consistent costs, supply, tastes, and above all, peace of mind. 

This isn’t limited to commodities facing crises. Depending on the application, Edlong’s sweet browns can help reduce the use of sweetened condensed milk, brown butter, maple, honey, and more. 

Functional Sweet Brown Flavors—Tailored Taste Technologies 

Above all, what makes our sweet browns and all of our taste technologies unique is your product. 

In other words, while great off-the-shelf, we know that indulgent innovations require more than one-size-fits-all solutions. 

So while your product developers are focused on everything from nutrition labels and ingredient statements to packaging and scalability, we’re focused on one thing: making the best-tasting product possible. 

That’s what we’re passionate about. And that’s why we’re passionate about our functional sweet brown flavors and what they can mean for your formulation’s success. 

Related Links:

• Edlong Functional Sweet Brown Line
• Brown Butter: A Game-Changer for Sweet Treats
• From Caramel to Condensed Milk: The Evolution of Sweet Brown Taste Technologies
• Filling The Plant-Based Food Plate e-Book