Featured member: Flavourtech

Flavourtech is a privately owned company, established in 1985 and based in the town of Griffith NSW. They design, manufacture, service and support specialised processing equipment for the food, beverage (coffee, tea, wine & beer), dairy, flavour and pharmaceutical industries worldwide. Over 90% of their products are exported and they have installed equipment in over 60 countries.

The unique technology and innovative applications that Flavourtech has developed allows it to process these products in a very gentle manner through the use of steam alone, and without the use of any chemicals or solvents. Their core technology, Spinning Cone Column (SCC) is considered best in class for flavour capture in the tea, coffee and flavour industry and is used by market leading companies in these industries world wide.

Flavourtech has grown by customising solutions to fit the specific requirements of customers in different regions across the world which allows them to differentiate their products against their competitors. Flavourtech has implemented global best practices in its design and manufacturing processes, as well as adapt its sales & marketing strategies to each of the regions it competes in. As a consequence, Flavourtech has become a more creative, flexible and culturally-aware company as it competes across many different industries in various regions.
Flavourtech were pioneers in the zero alcohol trend having installed their first SCC in the wine industry in the late 1980’s. Many more followed with installations in the USA, Spain, Portugal, South Africa over the late 1990’s. Installations for zero alcohol beer were also achieved in the early 2000’s. The development of the Resin Adsorption Column in 2018 is to meet the requirement of achieving <0.05% alcoholic products. Zero alcohol products processed through the Spinning Cone Column can be found around the world.

In the mid 90’s Flavourtech combined their SCC and Centritherm technologies into a ‘total solution’ creating the Integrated Extraction System (IES) tailored to meet the individual needs of beverage customers. It also developed revolutionary new technologies such as the Rotating Disc Column (RDC)in 2015 that extracts coffee in a fraction of the time of conventional techniques while improving quality.

A major milestone was achieved in 2018 with the sale and subsequent installation of a full IES process line, including the RDC, into the soluble coffee industry in Colombia and India. This multi-million dollar process line allows Flavourtech to not just be a small part in someone else’s process line but to supply the entire process line itself. This achieves a “Customer for Life” with service and support supplied by Flavourtech for many years into the future securing ongoing export business and further building the relationship with customers.

Much of the canned coffee in Japan, iced tea in the USA and instant coffee just about anywhere in the world has likely passed through a Flavourtech technology. The majority of Flavour houses around the world also use the Spinning Cone Column to capture natural aromas from fruit, vegetables, tea and coffee.

Flavourtech were National Manufacturing category winners of the 2018 Export Council Awards. They were also NSW winner of the 2020 Premier’s Export Council’s Resilience Awards.
Flavourtech joined the ECA to ensure it stayed up to date with all news regarding export, export markets, FTA’s, Incoterms and freight. The ECA has experts in all areas that assist Flavourtech in their decision making when questions arise.
The Pandemic has changed the way Flavourtech conducts their business. Pre pandemic half the Flavourtech team travelled for sales and technical meetings, installations, commissioning and maintenance of equipment. The way of the future has been accepted by Flavourtech staff and now all meetings are conducted virtually. This has been extended by the maintenance, installation and commissioning teams that now through the use of technology such as Augmented Reality glasses can see and hear as if they were standing in front of the equipment on the other side of the world.
The early adoption of using technology to conduct their business and clear and open communication with their customers sees 2021 being a stellar year for Flavourtech with sales from a variety of countries that include India, Scotland, USA, Spain, China, Japan, Brazil and Vietnam. Like all companies Flavourtech hopes to be able to once again travel for face to face meetings and installations but for the time being Flavourtech is staying on top of their game with their multi talented, expert team.