The tropical fruit native to Mexico is today mainly eaten raw in Latin America and has some use as a flavor in dairy products such as milkshakes, ice cream and yogurts.
Aromatech recently fulfilled a customer request for mamey-flavored lollipops and believes there could be scope for further mamey-flavored confectionery NPD.
‘Exotic fruits are still trendy’
Karine Maffre, applications and evaluation manager at Aromatech, told ConfectioneryNews: "It's an exotic fruit and exotic fruits are still trendy. People like to discover new tastes."
Frutarom said last year flavors from far-flung and exotic destinations were still in vogue, while Innova Market Insights said in January ethnic flavors and spices will be a leading food trend in 2017.
Maffre said: "I think mamey can be a good flavor for confectionery - for hard-boiled candies for example, because it's very fruity and with a small quantity of acidic notes."
Good profile for Asia
Aromatech developed the flavor at its US subsidiary and is already using it in dairy and confectionery applications in the US, as well as in France and Turkey.
"In other countries in Asia like China and Thailand, they like more milky notes in confectionery - such as banana cream - and this flavor, mamey has coconut notes in its profile,” said Maffre.
Aromatech’s mamey flavor is not colored, but natural colors can be added to produce mamey's natural orange color.
"The flavor is natural so it's always better if we use a natural color in our applications - then we can say all is natural in the recipe,” said Maffre.
Natural flavor
The flavor costs slightly more than an artifical flavor, she said.
"But this flavor is not so expensive. We know in confectionery and yoghurts most of the time, the price of flavors are not high.
"We can develop an artifical flavor with the same taste of course," she added.
Aromatech's mamey flavor comes as a liquid, but Maffre said the company could also develop a powder or emulsion.
"For confectionery, we use most of the time liquid flavors because it's easier...In other applications it's sometimes easier to use powder."
In 2015, Forbes wrote a feature article ‘the Mamey - A Tropical Miami Fruit That Should Become Mainstream’ in which it talked about mamey’s popularity in Florida, where it is also cultivated, and its potential mass appeal.