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Swampy Flavour Standard
The Swampy Flavour Standard by FlavorActiV is a professional sensory reference designed to help trained tasters accurately identify, understand, and measure swampy off-flavours in food and beverage products.
This standard is based on Dimethyl trisulphate (DMTS) — a sulphur compound known for its intense, swamp-like, cooked-garlic-and-onion character. It is widely used in sensory training, quality control, and root-cause analysis to ensure flavour integrity across production environments.
We ship globally – shipping costs may apply depending on your region
Minimum Order: £275
WHAT IS SWAMPY FLAVOUR?
Swampy flavour is an undesirable off-flavour commonly described as swamp-like, cooked garlic, or onion-like.
From a sensory and chemical perspective, swampy flavour is most often associated with Dimethyl trisulphate, a potent sulphur compound that can dominate aroma and taste even at very low concentrations.
In finished products, this off-flavour is considered a serious quality defect because it masks the intended flavour profile and reduces consumer acceptance.
WHAT CAUSES SWAMPY OFF-FLAVOUR?
Understanding the causes of swampy flavour is critical to effective prevention and quality control. Common causes include:
– Bacterial contamination of water sources, particularly in poorly sanitised systems
– Microbial activity during processing or storage
– Degradation of sulphur-containing compounds under unsuitable conditions
– Water quality issues, including stagnant or contaminated supply lines
These factors can lead to the formation of dimethyl trisulfide, producing the characteristic swampy or cooked-garlic aroma.
USING THE SWAMPY FLAVOUR STANDARD FOR SENSORY TRAINING
The Swampy Flavour Standard is specifically designed for structured sensory training programmes. It enables panels to:
– Learn to recognise swampy off-flavours accurately
– Calibrate intensity scoring across tasters
– Improve panel consistency and repeatability.
– Build confidence in identifying sulphur-related defects.
This makes it an essential tool for both new and experienced sensory professionals.
HOW TO RECOGNISE SWAMPY FLAVOUR: SENSORY TERMS
When evaluating products using the Swampy flavour standard, tasters typically describe the defect using the following sensory terms:
– Swampy
– Cooked garlic
– Onion
– Sulphurous
– Stagnant water
– Overcooked vegetable
These descriptors help create a shared sensory language within quality and production teams.
WHAT ARE THE PROFESSIONAL APPLICATIONS OF THE SWAMPY FLAVOUR STANDARD?
The Swampy Flavour Standard supports a wide range of professional applications, including:
– Quality control teams use it to identify water-related contamination issues early
– Sensory panels training to recognise sulphur-based off-flavours with precision
– Brewers and beverage producers are monitoring flavour stability and hygiene standards
– Food manufacturers validating process changes and sanitation effectiveness
– R&D and product development teams ensure clean flavour profiles before launch
OTHER INFORMATION
Compound reference: Dimethyl trisulphate (DMTS)
Flavour classification: Sulphur-related off-flavour
Typical impact: Severe flavour masking and rejection risk
FlavorActiV GMP Flavour Standards
Only Pharmaceutical Quality GMP Flavour Standards provide sufficient quality for professional sensory panels to train and validate with.
We produce encapsulated GMP (Pharmaceutical Good Manufacturing Practice) Flavour Standards that are safe to both smell and drink. The compounds within our capsules impart the aroma, taste and mouthfeel of a specific defect or positive flavour into a beverage for the purposes of taster training, calibration and quality control.
Our individual flavour GMP Flavour Standards are sold by flavour, each flavour pack contains 5 capsules, each separately blister packaged. Our sensory kits contain a mixture of flavours, each separately blister packaged, read the product description for flavour details.
We ship globally, and have over 20 years of experience at it. Our GMP Pharmaceutical Flavour Standards are produced to the highest standards, and as such, their shelf-life is strong and their quality consistent.
FlavorActiV’s flavour centre is the world’s only pharmaceutically run facility dedicated to the production of flavour reference standards. The Flavour Centre is a state-of-the-art facility housed within the campus of world-renowned Quay Pharma near Liverpool in the U.K.
The Flavour Centre was designed by FlavorActiV from the ground up at the direct request of global customers as they looked to move away from inferior food grade ‘certified flavour standards’ to GMP Pharma, a standard that ensures safe, stable, traceable, consistent and long shelf-life products.
All FlavorActiV’s industry-leading encapsulated flavour standards are manufactured following GMP at our Flavour Centre. All aspects of manufacture are overseen by Quay Pharma who are audited by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.K. Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory agency (MHRA). We also welcome customer audits.
Only FlavorActiV GMP flavour standard capsules bear our mark of authenticity.
We brand each of our capsules so that our customers know they’re getting the Pharmaceutical GMP Quality that only FlavorActiV provide.
Industry leading packaging and shelf-life
FlavorActiV flavour standards are blister packaged, which extends shelf-life and protects capsules from potential contamination. The average shelf-life of FlavorActiV flavour standards is 18 months to 4 years, depending on the flavour compounds.
We will never ship in pots or plastic packaging, here’s why…
Blister packaging protects capsules from the environment until they are ready for use. Blister packaging greatly reduces the amount of headspace for possible flavour escape. As each capsule individually blister packaged, making use of one capsule still leaves all others protected. FlavorActiV Flavour Standard packaging is 100% recyclable, as opposed to polypropylene which is not widely recycled.
Pots are semi-porous, they allow molecules to pass through and flavour to be lost, their significant headspace also adds to substantial flavour escape as a gas, even when using just one capsule all those remaining in the pot are exposed.
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