If you’ve had a donut, brownie, cupcake or cookie in the past year, you’ve probably had a baked good made with ingredients from Embassy Ingredients. Martino Brambilla was just 17 years old when his father handed him the reins to the company. Since then he’s grown it into one of the world’s largest providers of flavors and ingredients in the world.
Martino was a guest on a recent episode of our food, beverage and restaurant podcast, Forktales. Here’s a look at four questions from that episode. Check out the full interview with Martino here.
HOW MUCH OF A CHALLENGE HAS IT BEEN TO KEEP UP WITH THE DEMAND FOR CLEANER INGREDIENTS?
Back in the 90s I’d say 80% of all the flavors sold were artificial and 20% were natural. Today, it’s about 80% natural and 20% artificial. The colors are more of a challenge. That’s the costly part, but color can be done now, too.
CAN YOU HAVE INDULGENCE AND CLEAN LABELS?
Oh, absolutely. Some of my favorite products on store shelves are indulgent, taste great AND are clean label. In the 70s the technology wasn’t there to make a lot of indulgent clean label products. Today, you can use natural ingredients to make a product that actually tastes better than something that uses artificial ingredients.
HOW DO YOU BALANCE TRENDING EXOTIC FLAVORS WITH MORE TRADITIONAL OFFERINGS? SOMETIMES YOU JUST WANT A CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE, RIGHT?
The basics are easy to sell and they’re always going to be a mass market item with great sales. You can do a tweak on a basic recipe or you can get on a new trend and experiment with a limited time offering. A lot of our customers will try an LTO because it reduces the risk factor and they can see if it’s something that can go mainstream or something they might want to make all year round.
IT SAYS ON YOUR WEBSITE THAT IF YOU’RE AN EMPLOYEE OF EMBASSY INGREDIENTS YOU GET “BAKERY TREATS GALORE.” DO EMBASSY EMPLOYEES REALLY GET LOTS OF TREATS?
Absolutely! Every time we make a batch of anything we test it with employees. There are endless amounts of baked goods coming out of our bakery. We’re always developing new products and looking for people to taste the products and give us feedback. In some job functions you have to be eating sweets every day. So, for some people, it’s a dream job.
