Gold Standard

Behind Every Great Flavor Is a Gold Standard 

When a guest falls in love with a drink, they rarely think about how the flavor was created. 

They notice that the strawberry tastes like fresh-picked berries, not candy. That the vanilla is fragrant and creamy without overpowering the coffee. That the seasonal latte they ordered this week tastes just as good the next time they visit. 

At Torani, that consistency doesn't happen by accident. It's the result of our Gold Standard Development Process, a disciplined approach that combines market insights, sensory science, and flavor craftsmanship to create flavors operators can trust. 

It Starts with Curiosity  

Every new flavor begins with a simple question: What do consumers want next? 

Our Insights team continuously tracks beverage menus, global food trends, retail innovation, consumer behavior, and emerging flavor preferences. We don't just ask what's trending, we ask why. 

Understanding the "why" behind a trend helps us identify flavors with staying power, not just fleeting popularity. 

Finding the Flavor's North Star

Once we've identified a promising flavor, the real exploration begins. 

Rather than creating a syrup from imagination alone, our team gathers dozens of real-world examples of that flavor. If we're developing a strawberry syrup, that might include fresh strawberries, preserves, candies, frozen desserts, beverages, baked goods, and more. 

Then our trained sensory panel tastes them all. 

The goal isn't to find the sweetest product or the most popular one. It's to identify the product that best captures the experience we want to deliver. 

We call this our Gold Standard the benchmark that becomes the north star for development. 

Speaking the Language of Flavor

How do you describe the taste of a perfect strawberry? 

"Good" isn't specific enough. 

Instead, our sensory experts build a vocabulary around flavor using sensory evaluation and flavor wheels. Rather than simply saying a flavor is "fruity," they identify the precise characteristics that matter. 

For example, a strawberry might be: 

These descriptors become the blueprint our food scientists use during development. 
Using a shared sensory language also helps remove subjectivity from product development. Marketing, product development, quality, and sales can all communicate using the same flavor vocabulary, creating alignment from concept through commercialization. 

Where Art Meets Science

Armed with the Gold Standard and detailed flavor descriptors, Torani's food scientists begin developing the new flavor. 

This isn't a one-and-done process. 

Most flavors require a minimum of 15 to 20 iterations before they achieve the flavor profile we're targeting, and some require significantly more. Throughout development, each new prototype is evaluated by trained sensory panelists against the original Gold Standard. 

The question isn't simply, "Does this taste good?" 

It's: 

Does it taste like the flavor experience we set out to create? 

Only when the answer is “yes” does the flavor move forward. 

Built for the Real World

Creating a great flavor in the lab is only half the challenge. 

The flavor must also perform consistently across beverages—from iced coffees and cold brews to lemonades, matchas, refreshers, dirty sodas, teas, smoothies, cocktails, dirty sodas, and more. 

Once a formula is finalized, our production team scales it for manufacturing while maintaining the integrity of the original sensory target. From there, the creativity shifts to operators, who transform the flavor into signature beverages that delight their guests. 

Why It Matters for Operators 

Every operator wants guests to come back for that drink - the one they crave and recommend to friends. 

That's why we invest so heavily in our Gold Standard Process. 

It helps ensure that every Torani flavor delivers: 

When you build drinks with Torani, choosing more than a flavor. You're choosing a development process rooted in consumer insights, sensory science, and over a century of flavor expertise.