Questions of Taste: How Insights Shape What the World Eats and Drinks with Basak Oker, Marketing & CSI Director at Givaudan

Foreign. Welcome to the Insiders Club Podcast brought to you by Stravito, the enterprise knowledge management solution that drives impactful decision making. I'm your host, Ross Dempsey, and each episode we'll be speaking with insight leaders from across the industry to hear how they're turning insights into business impact. Hi everyone and welcome. Welcome back to the Insiders Club Podcast. Now you'll notice we've had a little break whilst I've actually been off on paternity leave for a while. But good news, I've had my coffee and I'm raring to go. And actually, speaking of coffee, here's an interesting question. Who decides what the world eats and drinks? So today we're doing something a little different. We're going to immerse ourselves in the world of consumer and sensory insights, exploring how insight teams help translate human experiences of taste, scent and emotion into actionable understanding. And we'll touch on a few topics, including the role of consumer and sensory research in guiding flavor innovation, how organizations turn insights into decisions about what products or flavors to develop, as well as how faster access to knowledge and research helps those teams to respond more quickly to new ideas or briefs. And actually, we'll talk about the future of taste, how consumer preferences and flavor trends may evolve in the coming years. And to guide us on this journey, I'm thrilled to welcome Bashak Oka, Director of Marketing and Consumer and Sensory Insights at Givaudan Europe. Now, Bashanik has a hell of a lot of experience, 18 years of cross regional experience in marketing, innovation and consumer insights. But Bashanak, first of all, thanks so much for joining us and I'll hand over to you to give our listeners a little intro to yourself and your background. Thank you so much for. Well firstly, thanks for having me here. It's really exciting. As you rightly said, I'm working with marketing and Consumer Sensory Insights team team here at Givaudan Europe and at a high level what I do is to turn insights into growth both for our company but also for all the customers we work with. These are food and beverage manufacturers all across the world actually, but with a focus on Europe. Obviously my background is in. Well, maybe it's a bit boring, but Marketing Business Administration. I worked in FMCGS before where I had different marketing and innovation ROLES and since 2015 August, I had the pleasure of immersing myself in the wonderful world of flavors. Both working on the marketing side, but more recently both marketing and csi, leading the teams there and interacting with global innovators and getting surprised every Day. Amazing. And actually a thought occurs if our listeners, if you don't have a snack with you, now might be the time to grab a snack as we, as we go through this conversation. But let's. Let's set the stage a little bit with the world of flavor Insights. It might be fair to say that many people don't actually realize that behind these flavors, the flavors that we experience every day, whether it's drinks, I was just having my wake up coffee to snacks or dairy, there's actually a huge amount of work, a huge amount of research and insight that goes into that. But maybe you could expand a little bit about your role at Givaudan today. And maybe we lead with that, which is how does Insights shape innovation in flavors? And how are you seeing that in your role? That's a great question. So my team is really helping shape the new flavor technologies, the new innovation you see in the market, because it's. Because we have connections and customers across the food and beverage industry. So we work with food and beverage manufacturers to identify what could be growth opportunities in terms of categories, new consumer segments and taste white spaces, you could call it. And what my team does, along with all the scientists we have in our organization, right, because they're people who actually make the flavors. Their flavor is. We have people who translate that into what we call wild products, right? So they apply the flavors into the different categories. One day it could be beverage, another day it could be a snack. So hopefully people already grabbed their snacks by now. And what my team is trying to do, both the consumer sensory Insights teams as well as the marketing teams, they try to remove randomness from innovation. Because without Insights, if you think about it, it can really be based on intuition and internal preferences. And I've seen that before, before Givaudan and also during my career at Givaudan, because sometimes people fall in love with an idea, right? And they might follow their gut feeling, and that might actually be the right feeling. However, if you. When you enrich it with insights, then that's the winning product, in my experience. Experience. And what my team is trying to do is to identify, you know, this flavor direction that we're proposing, who is this for? What emotional or functional need does it serve and why it will win in the market. And we try to build our recommendations for our customers so that they win in the market. But also consumers have a voice, right? Because when they do, then we really see market success. It's really interesting. It's quite a task to marry up, you know, the creativity with the science, with the insight, and then obviously the kind of commercial and business and revenue needs kind of reminds me actually of when that works. Well, my time at Burberry, you know, there would be kind of inspirational decision making happening. But when that was underpinned by insight and creativity is when you really get that sweet spot. And I wonder, are there any good examples you could give our listeners of that sweet spot? Is there a moment you've seen where, you know what this. Because we talk a lot on the podcast about impact of insight, you know, where it's influenced decision making or product or customer value and following that trajectory. But have you got a moment where you've seen insight really directly influence a flavor decision effectively? I have many memories. I'm just trying to find the perfect one for you. So one time in my career at Givaudan, we were working with a beverage customer, and they briefed us on a flavored water brand. And they were actually asking us, you know what? Like, we want to have a refreshing experience, and we already think botanicals are the right way to go. Right. And that was the brief. So normally we try to stick to the brief, but we always explore what else could be there. What's the wild card? And we decided, you know what, let's do our research. So we looked at what's happening on social media. This was also, like a good ten years ago, right. So our tools were limited by that, but we still did consumer research both on the brand and also what could be next. Asking consumers. And we merged it with what we know from what's happening out there across different categories, not just in flavored water, but also in carbonated soft drinks, alcohol, as well as sweet goods, because these different categories can influence themselves. So we went back to the customer. In the customer meeting, I remember there were two separate country teams of the customer. And we actually said, you know what? We went outside of Berri, we delivered some botanicals for you that resonates with consumers, but we actually think you should go with a coconut flavor. And you had to see some of the eyes were rolling from the customer side, like, what are you doing? Why aren't you on brief? And some people were actually really interested. They're like, oh, that can be interesting sometimes. It can be interesting in an English kind of way. But this time they were genuinely intrigued. So we tasted the product and half the room. And that was actually one team from one country. They loved it. They were like, you know what? We're going to launch it immediately, and thank you so much for Bringing it. And the other team was still suspicious and they almost hated it. And we also saw that in the consumer results a little bit. But we knew that this could be a really interesting way forward for their brands and they could tap on a space that wasn't really clean before. So that one team launched that product and it was in, I remember at the time, like it was on all the reports like, oh, look at this, like such a success. And I've seen in the country that it was like shelf facing increasing for a period of time. And then the other team, I'm not going to name which country, they also launched it and I believe they also had their success for the time being. So that for me was a true moment where I first handedly saw like how an insight, how consumer research and bringing trends, what's happening out there, could influence the decision and actually totally change the decision because team was thinking about we're going to do botanicals and then they ended up with coconut. Yeah, I really like. And this goes back to a phrase you used in your introduction there, the idea of, you know, being a bit bolder and going for that white space. I think, you know, it's really interesting. Tastes can be a very personal thing. And you know, as you say, you might have a fairly set idea, but actually if you want to break into those white spaces, I guess there's a certain amount of, you know, risk might be the wrong word, but boldness and approach and a kind of test and learn approach would be really interesting. I really like the fact as well Insight's role there is kind of opening that up from just gut feel, you know, a scientist or you know, the taste experts saying these things go together, actually that insight about the consumer, about the market, why it broadens that scope and that picture that, hey, we could try something else here. I think that's a really great example. Thinking about that, I wonder, you know, actually on the podcast we've also had things like audio branding and you know, the sort of differences in that world. And I'm thinking about taste. Obviously taste, as we said, is quite personal, but how does it work across different cultures, for example? So it would strike me that taste preferences will vary quite widely across different cultures and regions. Have you got examples? Because I think we've all got a preconceived idea of what we like and don't like and everyone's different. But have you got some examples where taste is different across markets and what do companies need to do to understand that before they launch something globally, for example, sure. And you said it yourself that, yes, it varies from one country to the other. It's actually, I can boldly say it's extremely local. And many times it's shaped by your memories. So if you think about the first flavor you had, it was probably during your childhood, right? And I think we all had different childhoods. Hopefully everybody happy ones. Right. But, you know, your grandmother was another person who would probably cook for you. Or what I had at school is. Would be totally different than the brands I would interact with, depending on where we're coming from, what kind of setting we were in. And my example would be, well, actually a berry flavor or a strawberry. It could be blueberry. Right. Can be loved in one country because they really experience that taste profile. Because a strawberry flavor could be anything, right. There could be thousand different profiles and it can be rejected in another because in some markets it might be associated with indulgence, whereas in others it might be associated with medicine. Like cough syrup. Right. Many cough syrups out there, they have their, you know, certain berry flavor, so. Or you can also take things like different fruits, different spice. So, for example, when we talk about hot and spicy flavors in Asia, people are more used to that. It's for everyday comfort, right. It's nothing special. Whereas for a European, it can be a lot about, oh, I'm going to be adventurous today, let me add a. A bit of a chili into whatever I'm cooking. And it might be really associated with exoticness. So when product developers or marketeers around the world, they want to come up with new innovation to delight their consumers, to get business growth. Right. To build their brands, what we always recommend is to dive into the local preferences first. Right. And what's happening in that country. And of course, merge that with what's happening with the brand, what technologies are available, what their lineup looks like. So you need to connect the dots before you launch something. Because it would be very naive to think that one profile will work everywhere around the world because nobody had the same childhood. Right. That would be naive to think. And we also recommend our customers to take that kind of approach. And for every project we work on, that's kind of what we work on. Right? Like from inspiration until validation with consumers, we try to gather the right insight for each step along the way and bring our customers into that journey. So we end up in the right innovation at the end of the day. That's really interesting. I've got a question I'll get to in a second, but maybe a build on that. Are there any examples of testing flavor profiles, it in markets that have actually really surprised you, that kind of didn't go according to plan or sort of failed spectacularly. We was like a failure story on the podcast where, you know, that's amazing. Yeah, those things didn't go well. And what did we learn from it? I'm just wondering, testing these flavor profiles in different markets, there any good examples of ones that just, hey, we didn't expect that. Yes. So. So I can actually give an example from my hometown in Turkey. And we'll bring up the snacks again. And I think failures, they're always great because at the end, I mean, if you didn't spend too much money, they always learn something from it. The failures I've experienced in food and beverages often come from the fact that product developers, or again, marketeers, they hop on a trend, assuming it's already accepted by their consumers. It might be, but many times it's not. You really need to validate that. Or maybe also assuming that something working in a big market will also work in another, just because it's an icon, you know, they might think, for example, I'll take the example of paprika, right? That's really big in, you know, places like Germany, also Netherlands. Right. And potato cress. And it's really associated with potato crisp as well. Like, because it's locally rooted. People always had those experiences, had good memories about it. But actually, if you take that to Turkey, paprika is a spice that we don't necessarily associate with potato crisp. It might be associated with yogurt, for example, because we make meze. And if you actually look at the Turkish market, yogurts and herbs work really well. So you're also European yourself, right? If you, if I tell you you're going to have potato crisp dipped in yogurt and herbs, that might be very weird for you because yogurt is normally associated with breakfast sweets and it's not in the same territory. Right. And the same, like if you took the paprika chips to the US they would always remain a niche, at least for the time being. Right. I'm talking about now and also in the past, because Americans, for them, if they're going to go a bit more hot and spicy, the first thing that comes to their mind is barbecue. That's an icon, Right. So it's all rooted in the local preferences. And you should never assume something that works in one market is going to be a win in another. You should always validate it with consumers in different ways. Right. And do your homework of Connecting the dots. And you know, as you were talking, I was thinking actually and sort of bringing in the previous question as well. The world changes quickly. And maybe it's just me, but it feels like particularly now, those generational shifts and changes are happening even quicker. The world has kind of globalized a lot over the recent decades. How do you see taste preferences evolving over time? What are the kind of forces that tend to shape those changes? Is it health trends, cultural moments? I mean, even things like social media or how young people interact with each other, really interested in Max. It feels like that's been a changing space in recent times. Yeah, that's an easy one because it's everything that has an impact. If you think about it though, some things have more impact than others, right? So that's why it's really important to understand what's happening socioeconomically in a country, what's happening on social media, what gives people social credit, right? That's also becoming really important. Which generation has the purchasing power? Which generation has influential power? I'll try to put it all together. So if you think about the COVID times, right, we went through those times, it was really crazy, right? Sometimes health is king. And we all started all of a sudden baking bread at home. I still have books from it. I have appliances that I never really touched afterwards because I can luckily buy really nice bread here. And back then, I remember baking mix category was really booming. You couldn't really find it in the supermarket because everybody was after it. Also remember more recently, we've seen the phenomenon of Dubai chocolate, right? And it all started from TikTok. And if you think about now, like after a few years now, for example, with everything that's happening in the world in terms of uncertainty, it's creating a cocooning indulgence trends where people are actually what we observe and it's not for everyone, but they want to create the safe environment at home, indulging themselves in different treats, right? And we see different sweet categories are really increasing because they fit in that indulgence trans. But actually some others are not doing so well, right? And at the same time, we see the impact of GLP1 medicine in North America more specifically, but also now picking up in the uk, There's a new generation coming, right? Gen Z is already there, they're posting everywhere and they're driving the conversation. But what about Gen Alpha? You also have a little one, right? So you would understand, like what kind of changes do you see between yourself and your child? And I experienced the same thing, right? So Again, I'm going to go back to what I said before. If you're developing innovation, and this is not just for food and beverage, it's actually for everything, you always need to be mindful of what's happening in the world of my consumers, right. Which consumer I'm going after, what kind of influences can I expect? And it's different for every category. When we talk about spirits, for example, we see Gen Z not drinking that much. Right. So for spirit producers, maybe they need to take a new direction and explore non alcoholic beverages that fit in the social occasion, how people are posting on social media. Get inspiration from that. But always do your consumer research, both your own and merge it with what you see outside and again, connect the dots. And if you can do that with the help of AI and some other tools nowadays, it's even better because you're going to be faster in doing that because it's a lot of information you need to go through and a lot of expertise, knowledge as well. And sometimes it's humanely impossible. Yeah, I think that's right. We really interesting and, and I think maybe, maybe the flip side of that coin if we widen the scope a little bit. We talk a lot on the podcast, actually, particularly recently about signals. We've done quite a few episodes on future trends and forecasting and the importance of signals in, in markets. But I wonder if we widen the scope when, when you say a brand might come to you and say, hey, we want the next big flavor, you know, it's a broad, it's a broad brief. What are the kind of a, what's the process for you to take that kind of brief and what are the signals that steer you to try to understand the consumer, how that might emerge for you as a team? Can you just ask people what are the kind of methods and signals that your team are looking for to answer that kind of brief? Tough question. I think probably so. By the way, it's a very good question because a lot of our customers also ask that question. Right. Maybe less so. Right. Because people understand that there isn't maybe just this one big flavor, they need to think about the overall experience. So I wish the answer was I just take it off the shelf. We have a flavor library and there you go. Well, but it's not that easy. Many times it needs tailoring for the brand, for the market and so on. And for that we go through a quite rigorous connecting the dots exercise. And that would be like bringing consumer insights, sensory preferences, market understanding, brand understanding, regulatory expertise, product application knowledge and of course, science and creativity together. And it really starts all the way from inspiration. And that inspiration could be a bar trek that we do. We do a lot of tricks at Chivaudan where we actually immerse ourselves into what's happening in top restaurants and bars. One day it could be patisser. At the moment, actually the theme is in Milan doing an indulgence trek. I wish I was there, but I mean, I'm stirred up. So that could be one way of getting the inspiration. Another day we could take the inspiration from art museums. We've also done that before where we did tram tracks, where we visited museums, where also Michael Star restaurants. Then after we have the inspiration from all these different perspectives, we go into concept development, right? Because we also need to understand like how do we translate this? And we've got fantastic experts who can create flavors accordingly and also apply that into the product that we're working with. And that process also depends on what's technologically feasible. Because you might see something in a bar, right, that's with glitter and different layers, but that's very hard to produce in an industrial environment. So we also need to give the right recommendation to our customers saying, look, this is the inspiration, but this is how it could look like, right? And it would still be good enough for the consumers, would still create something new. And we always try to also show market feasibility, like what's the expected success from this? And this sometimes takes quite long, right, Depending on the project needs. But more recently much faster thanks to new technologies we adopted also like our co creation methods, understanding our customers. And of course I need to mention, using AI in product development is also helping us get there. And this way I'm not so sure every time if we get the next big flavor, but at least we can ensure more market success and also experimentation, learning. Because it doesn't just stop with, there you go, this is the flavor. We sometimes do renovation and more recently, much more. So it's really interesting. I think it's nice for us to see the, excuse, the pun, but the ingredients that, that go into the cake, into the process, expanding that a little bit, you know, once these signals have started to appear, you know, you're going through this process, at what point does a trend feel strong enough where that decision comes? Okay, actually we're going to invest in this and maybe a follow up question to that is what happens when teams disagree and what kind of tips the scale for you in that decision making, if that makes sense. I think it's a tricky question, right, Because Nowadays we see that flavor trends can emerge in a few days thanks to the power of social media. And then everybody is a bit like, okay, what do I do now? Do I hop on the trend and do I do so? It's indeed very important to be able to predict the success from the first signals that we notice. And normally where we see it is social media. Sometimes like food service outlet, like, for example, it can be the quick service restaurants. It might be in the bar trek that I mentioned, for example, where we try to go and experience the top bars of the world. And it might be that a few mixologists, if we take the example of beverages mixologist, I might be demonstrating it in competitions and also posting a few things on social media. A year passes by and then you see it on some Michelin restaurant menus. Then it might travel to mainstream bars and boom, you know, all of a sudden everybody's posting about it. And I'll give you the example of citrus with spicy twist, especially like a spicy margarita, right? You see that everywhere now. But actually if you look at it like five years ago, you wouldn't really see it everywhere. And what we would experience many times is in the past. When I first joined Givaudin, I remember we had this cycle of, you know, how trends are moving from the artist places such as the bars and, you know, Michelin restaurants and so on, all the way to product shelves. And that was around, I think at the time, like four or five years. It could be like four or five years, but now it's much faster because consumers are just expecting everything. I think at some point we will also have robots doing these things, right? And so it's now like, it can be as short as half a year from ideation to launch. And again, that's also thanks to all the new ways of different innovation we use, but also the way people connect with each other and learn about these new experiences. You also asked about what do we do when teams disagree, right? And it can be our own teams, it can also be the customer teams. And well, I wish I could tell you, like we toss a coin and see who wins. Many times though, what we try to do is to always go back to the insight. So sometimes it's really a gut feeling, right? Like when you see these signals, you need to also listen to your guts, because if you don't and you just go with your mind, you might be missing something. But where I see success most of the time is when your mind is there, but your heart is also jumping and you merge the two and now you see success. So we try to do the same for our customers and also for our internal teams. There's always a good business narrative because at the end of the day, everybody's doing this for growth, both us and also the customer. And we have a task to delight consumers. We need to make lives happier, healthier with all the innovation we put out there. And for that to happen, you can't just have the facts. You need to also have the passion. You need to have the sometimes fantasy, the creativity. And if you could marry both, it's almost always a success. Yeah, I totally agree. And I think a couple of points you raised there are super important. Just in my experience, in my role with Stravito, you know, building narratives, you know, sort of winning hearts and minds, marrying those things together, but actually tying them to the business narrative. You know, customer value, revenue, performance, things that are on the mind of the business at that time, just give insight. Such a rocket boost and a trajectory to be a reusable asset in the business rather than, you know, just something that's quite interesting. One thing you said that struck me as being quite interesting and I've got a formal question was actually speed. So you mentioned in your world, you know, a flavor trend can emerge literally in days and have kind of, you know, a regional or even a global reach. And I'm thinking then about. Actually, it then becomes important to have speed of decision making something very close to my heart. So when you have a kind of trend that generates a lot of research on a practical level, again, we talk a lot about this on the podcast. What happens when teams can't get hold of that research or can't find it, and when they can, what's the unlock for you in the business? From my role, I see this a lot, which is if you can build a shared narrative and have your research, your insight, widely available to your corporate business, it really does supercharge decision making. But I'm conscious, is that your experience, have you got examples of the old world versus the new world in terms of how you can make decisions faster? For sure. Actually, it takes me back to, I believe, like seven, eight years ago, where we were really building our research capabilities. And we did a lot of research across all categories because we need to start food, beverage, healthcare companies, whatever has taste in it, you could think we might be in it. And over time, we had a lot of partners. We get insights from a lot of knowledge within the team, lots of both internal documents as well as external and so on. And one of the Teams locally. There was a lady there and she actually reached out to me saying, can't we create a, a search engine for insights? Like, is it really hard to do that? How can we do that? And that triggered something because this person really wanted to use insights, be insightful and connect all the dots and have access to all of it. But back then I think, you know, it wasn't something you could easily do. And she really felt the struggle of, you know, am I doing the right thing for my customer and also for the consumer? Because if I don't have all the data and you know, do I have to do new research? So I think what happens when you do that is again, you're not as confident. Right. If I cannot find the research very quickly, if you dive into the data, try to find it, then you lose a lot of time. And sometimes what also happens is you can't find it. So you're like, oh, there you go, let's just commission another research that's going to cost me this and that much amount of money, you know, so it's a really lose, lose situation. And luckily we moved away from that because now our teams can actually find it in minutes and sometimes seconds. Yeah. And I wonder, do you think, you know as well as the kind of, there's obvious sort of efficiency gains there just in your kind of day to day process for the insight team, do you think having that available has improved the quality of your conversations with the business? When you're debating briefs and where you might go with a certain project, is that something you've seen? Definitely. So we've been seeing it both in the internal innovation discussions because our teams have access and they could in minutes gather different insights from all across and it can be from a different market that they're not currently working with. But for a project they have to work on, everything speeds up. We can be faster in responding to briefs from customers and actually we can cut the innovation process much to much less. Right. We talked about trans traveling, like back then we had the luxury of waiting for four or five years. Now we don't have that luxury. So we need to be very responsive and make sure the innovation goes in front of consumers because that's their expectation. In terms of quality. We can make more confident decisions because we know that we ticked all the different points that we wanted to bring and understand. And we can also have better quality conversations with our customers. In terms of white spaces, what will be next from a flavor perspective. And I think more importantly, it shifts the role of insights functions from reporting or validating to enabling business growth. Right. Internally, now we're really seen as experts because they can just ask us something. Right. And maybe one day they won't even ask us. Right. We'll democratize everything, all the tools, and we're not there yet. But it's elevated the expertise perception of my insights function as well. Yeah, definitely. And it's a conversation I have a lot, a lot with a lot of global insight teams actually, who are on various stages of that journey of, you know, the kind of insight maturity curve, if you like. And I think when you go through that democratization process, I've always found paradoxically, you know, most insight teams are kind of worried, oh, hey, are we going to lose ownership and control and context over our insight if we make it available? And they always kind of say, well, actually if you don't, that's the danger of what will happen. Because insight is still shared, it's still doing the rounds around the business. But when you open it up and you communicate loudly with your name on it as the subject matter experts, it's actually then that you generate that control, that context, that visible ownership of that insight. So, yeah, really interesting your points there on how that enables a more quality conversation. And actually, you know, thinking about the future, you know, we've touched on quite a few points here that I think our listeners will enjoy. But looking ahead, what kind of shifts in taste or consumer preferences are you looking at sort of most closely right now? Are there flavors today that, you know, feel strange? But as you, as you mentioned before, could new in five years, this would be quite interesting. Or other very popular things that, hey, this might disappear and there'll be a whole new world weighing of flavors out there. Yeah, Actually that question can be so big, but it could also be quite small. And the first thing that we're really busy with nowadays is the impact of GLP1. Right. Because right now we see a huge trend in the US and we're trying to understand and calculate what would be the result in Europe, we know, in the uk, speaking up, does that mean people won't eat as much? Will they not snack as much? What will happen to all these indulgent categories that we've been building? Right. And people like, I think even the question of will people ever indulge again if everybody uses GLP1, but also like trying to figure out what percentage of the population will get the medication, what percentage will be inspired by it? And then, you know, maybe they'll do different weight loss strategies, for example, but I think, like, that is still a question that, you know, I think is going to really save the future. Personalization is another one because it's really hard to also do this at scale. You can have a few startups, for example, like we're monitoring. Definitely consumers would want more personalization. And even at. Because at home it's happening, right? Everybody's personalizing, right? But how do we bring that in a convenient manner? Also thinking about nutrition, right? Personalizing the taste, but also the nutrition and the creating an overall experience. One thing that we picked up some time ago when we saw, for example, in one of the bar tricks we've been seeing that there were a lot of fragrance ingredients coming in. Because what they did and like when I say fragrance, it would be used in a fine fragrance. So those ingredients were used in the top bars. And because our company also does fragrances, we were really asking the question, what does this really mean? Now we see fantasy flavors popping up. When I say fantasy, because you cannot really describe it, right? It might be, you know, associated with Barbie, for example, There could be a Barbie flavor. As long as you can dream it, right? All these pink products we saw out there. So I think we're going to see more of that and also more taste marriages, I call them, like savory flavors in sweet categories, sweet flavors in savory or traditionally savory categories, and everything merging together. Functionality is a big space. We think it's going to move into more physiology. Like how about changing your mood with your food and beverages? We have also a lot of insights on that. Which flavors give you happiness or, you know, in different markets. But it's all changes, right? We talked about the strawberry example, and then I personally think this is my personal opinion that didn't validate it with anybody in my company. But I think more of these niche cuisines, because we've seen a few years ago, nobody really talked about Korean cuisine. Now it's everywhere, right? But then what's next? What don't we know more about? Like, they're like a whole different cuisine on West Africa, another one on Central Asia, you know, and these things could become popular. We just need to monitor, you know, what kind of signals do we see? Let's connect the dots and let's see. And I want to do a trek in those places. So let's see how we get around that. But so these are some of the topics that come to my mind. But I'm sure there are more depending on where you are, which category and so on. Food and beverage is A huge space. Yeah, It's a brave new world out there. I mean, you've opened my eyes to, you know, the kind of. And even just the career point, you know, I think actually. Yeah. The. The kind of explosion in creed culture and popularity and music and you know, art and of course, livelihood and food be. Be part of that. And flavor and sensory. Be part of that. Amazing. We've touched on lots of points and I'm going to put you on the spot for our final question and we're going to go back to the first question which we pose to listeners, which is if we revisit that, who decides what the world eats and drinks? What would your answer be to that question? I think it's hard to say Bashak decides or Ross decides. It's not just one individual or entity. Luckily it's not, by the way, because innovation only gets better when you have different perspectives. Like ingredient manufacturers perspective. Like us. Right. We are experts in tastes. We'd like to be involved. And luckily we are. When we think about it, brand owners, they think of the future. But more importantly, consumers, they need to decide, they need to be involved. I think we really get heading in the right direction because there's much more and more emphasis on consumer insights. What consumers would like to have, what will bring us growth. A lot of people understood that. I've experienced it during my career. At some point, maybe they weren't, but now I think we're in the right direction. So if I have to answer it, it's everyone, and then it's going to be more democratic in the future. Amazing. Well, first of all, thanks so much Bashok, for coming on the podcast. Really interesting conversation. I'm definitely going to go and find some lunch after this, but thanks again and we really look forward to having you back on the podcast again soon. My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. The Insightus Club podcast is brought to you by Stravito, the enterprise knowledge management solution that drives impactful decision making. To learn more about how Stravito helps leading brands make the most of their enterprise knowledge, visit stravito.com be sure to click follow so you don't miss out on any future updates. And if you would like even more insightful content, you can subscribe to the Insiders Club newsletter at the link in the show notes. On behalf of the entire team here at Stravito, thank you for listening.