Philadelphia Flavor Maker Taking Exotic Turn

By Harold Brubaker, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Oct. 28–Does the thought of apple chervil gelato, peppermint hummus, and a cup of hot vanilla set your mouth watering?

If so, don’t rush out to the store just yet. Those fanciful treats were among the concoctions – not yet on the market – that David Michael & Co.’s flavor mavens dreamed up to showcase their talents at a recent “road show” for food manufacturers.

The Philadelphia company produces natural and artificial flavors for many types of foods and drinks, including soft drinks, yogurt, candy and baked goods.

“This is the way food is supposed to taste,” said Philip Lempert, food-trends editor on NBC’s Today show, waving his arm at an array of 24 exhibits enticing visitors with beverages, baked goods, and other items infused with flavors from David Michael’s global operations.

Lempert gave the keynote address at the showcase this month at the Top of the Tower meeting room in the Bell Atlantic Tower in Center City. The meeting drew nearly 100 product developers and purchasers from customers and potential customers for a day of talks and tastes.

Lempert said David Michael’s experimentation with unusual flavor combinations – such as chipotle mamey orange or parsley black currant – is part of a trend away from a 50-year focus on creating flavor through fat, salt and sugar.

David Michael, which operates in relative obscurity because of confidentiality agreements with customers, ranks in the top 25 of 300 companies that compete in the $5 billion global flavor market, said Skip Rosskam, president and chief operating officer.

The privately held company’s annual sales are between $50 million and $100 million, he said – up from about $25 million in the early 1990s. It employs 220 people in the United States, Mexico, Europe and China.

Rosskam said he expects the growth to continue: The company plans to break ground next month on a 30 percent expansion of its operations in Northeast Philadelphia to 112,000 square feet.

Rosskam’s grandfather, Walter, joined the business in 1919 along with Eli and Robert Rosenbaum. Rosskam and the Rosenbaums took over the company when founder David Michael died in 1935.

Today, the two families – Rosskam; his brother, Steve; their cousin, George Rosskam; and Stuart Rosenbaum – still own and manage it.

A key to David Michael’s growth has been success with big food manufacturers, such as Kellogg Co., which is best-known for breakfast cereal but which also makes fruit snacks and other products.

David Michael became a core supplier to Kellogg when the Battle Creek, Mich., company whittled down its flavor suppliers from 65 to five about 18 months ago, said Kathy Jowers, a Kellogg raw-ingredient procurement manager for colors, seasonings and flavors.

David Michael is making a rare supplier presentation next month at Kellogg’s corporate headquarters, said Jowers, who attended the Philadelphia show.

The heart of the local event was the opportunity to taste goods prepared by David Michael flavor chemists, sensory analysts, food technologists and others.

An attempt by David Michael sensory analyst Lori Behm and flavor chemist David Maurer to capture the essence of single-origin chocolates in a flavor enhancer intrigued Martin Krueger and Arlen Moser of Blommer Chocolate in East Greenville, Montgomery County.

Single-origin chocolate – made from cocoa beans grown in one country, instead of a blend – is a high-priced and increasingly popular niche in the $700 million U.S. market for dark chocolate.

Behm and Maurer added their flavor enhancers – designed to mimic cocoas from Colombia, Madagascar and Venezuela – to Wilbur’s Victorian semisweet chocolate. “I think she was headed in the right direction,” Moser said after tasting the chocolate, “but I’m still not sure how you would market it.”

Behm suggested hot cocoa mixes, ice cream bar coatings, and flavored milk as possible uses. But it is too early to tell if the flavor enhancer will ever show up on grocers’ shelves.

Tasty ideas come to David Michael’s people in many ways. For instance, since vanilla ice cream far outpaces chocolate ice cream in sales, a company employee wondered why not develop a nice cup of hot vanilla to warm up the kids after an afternoon of sledding?

“Of course!” NBC’s Lempert said. “That’s like a light bulb going on.”

Most flights of fancy never make it to market, but that’s fine, Rosskam said. “We need to be great failures before we succeed,” he said.

Rosskam, 59, relishes the story of the company’s founding in the back room of an Atlantic City tavern in 1896 by David Michael, who was a salesman for Fleer Chewing Gum Co., of Philadelphia, and tavern-owner Herman Hertz.

Hertz made his own whiskey, but it had too much alcoholic burn because it wasn’t aged.

He and Michael developed flavors from extracts of bark and botanicals to soften the whiskey and make it taste as if it had been aged eight years in a oak barrel.

“We still sell the same formula,” Rosskam said.

Coming full circle, he said, David Michael now has a product that adds an alcoholic burn to low-proof drinks.

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