Nicole DeBloois joined JMH Premium 11 years ago. “I was one of two scientists, carrying the torch” for analytical flavor solutions, she remembered. Though the company was always solution-based, the customer base was far different from today’s savvy seekers. It wasn’t until JMH Premium turned its focus from soups and sauces to customized solutions that a third culinary scientist came aboard and then a fourth.
“I wasn’t working in a vacuum anymore,” said DeBloois, who was recently named director of research and development. “We’d get feedback from people on what worked and what didn’t. We became more energized.”
Then customers took a turn, demanding clean labels and ingredients with traceable sources in products that must function on a large-scale industrial level and still taste like they came out of Grandma’s kitchen. That’s a mouthful (and a tall order), but DeBloois and her growing team of fellow culinary scientists were up to the task, setting the stage long before customers came to their Salt Lake City headquarters.
“Speed-scratch isn’t necessarily a new concept, but it really took off,” she said. “We started taking things out of the hands of the chefs and building on what we knew.”
On the creative front, it means looking at chicory, fig juice, and even hop extract with new eyes and making sure the turmeric hasn’t expired in the search for a distinctive taste and texture in a reasonable amount of time. And from the processing side, after seeing how the blend reacts to the recipes’ proteins, vegetables, and such, it calls for kitchens and manufacturing equipment capable of delivering the clean, safe result of those brain-storming sessions.
“We have options,” DeBloois said, noting how rice, oats, and a staple of Grandma’s pantry, tapioca, often replace GMOs and certain corn products. And that’s just the beginning of the herbs, spices and natural additives that go into the final product.
In the end, “It’s all in the blending,” DeBloois said of the process. “We add a little bit of oil to keep everything from clumping. It’s important to pay attention to when each ingredient is added, too. Judging by the weight and density of each, for example, we know to add the dried parsley toward the end.”
It doesn’t stop there. Determined to reach the gold standard JMH Premium has set for itself, crews test samples of the blend throughout the manufacturing cycle. Samples taken from the center and each end are pressed between two pieces of paper to make sure each have the proper ratio of ingredients.
“We’re comparing colors, testing the flavor,” DeBloois said. “Does it still have that culinary flair? And most importantly, is it consistent? That’s what our customers really want; to know that it is always going to taste the same, no matter how many times their staff has rotated or whatever it goes through before it reaches the grocery shelves.”
And at the end of the day? “I go home and eat a bowl of cereal” she says.