Expanding business creates flavors for ice creams, seltzers, energy drinks, more

KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MI –– A Kalamazoo County business’s $15 million expansion is complete, helping the company as it mixes and packages flavors for people’s favorite ice creams, seltzers, protein bars, energy drinks and more.

The business, called FlavorSum, is a “flavor producer” at 3680 Stadium Park Way, just west of Kalamazoo. FlavorSum offered MLive/Kalamazoo Gazette a tour inside its new 35,000-square foot expansion.

The project started out at $10 million, but ended up being $15 million. Some costs were higher than expected and the project also expanded in scope, company officials said.

The added warehouse and equipment will help “make life a little bit more ergonomically correct,” President/CEO Brian Briggs said.

“(This) opened up the floor and allowed us to put in about $4 million worth of new automation equipment,” Briggs said. “If you think about a KitchenAid mixer at home and put that on steroids — think about a 1,000-gallon mixer like that — that’s how a lot of the product was made.”

Briggs took over the company in March 2020. FlavorSum has since grown from 40 to 72 employees at the Kalamazoo location, making it the epicenter of business.

There are two other FlavorSum labs, one in Ontario, Canada, and one New Jersey.

There are only about 200 “flavorists” in North America. Briggs says FlavorSum has nine of them. This allows his team to make the prototypes and flavors here.

With the new investment, FlavorSum is able to replicate what final production will look like for products.

“A flavorist could make it on their bench top, but by the time you make a protein beverage, it might taste much different after it’s been manufactured in a big facility,” Briggs said. “So we’re able to take what was made on the desktop and basically run it through our miniature equipment … it really allows our customer to accelerate the process.”

A walk through the new warehouse is a blast of flavor itself –– Briggs says all of the flavors combine to make a smell that permeates throughout the building.

FlavorSum works with small and mid-sized emerging food and beverage companies to help them develop new flavors.

The company doesn’t share who its customers are, but FlavorSum has played a role in finding flavors for many of the new alcoholic and non-alcoholic seltzers on the market, as well as work with regional ice cream manufacturers, among others.

“Our sweet spot is working with companies that we essentially become an extension of their organization, because we can help them ‘R&D’ it, we can help them figure out how to make it and we can provide them with the input they need,” Briggs said. “We spend a lot of time with the customer saying, ‘What is it you’re trying to create?’”

For example, the flavors people want while working out aren’t the same as the flavors somebody wants when relaxing before bed.

Historically, the product was made and then hand-poured into one-gallon or five-gallon jugs. But with the new investments, the mixing tanks are now directly connected to a filling machine that fills and caps the product.

There’s even a machine that stacks products on a pallet, saving the crew from heavy lifting.

The floor team’s main responsibility now is to monitor quality and apply labels. Briggs hopes the new automation equipment will make their jobs easier.

FlavorSum is an expert in tailoring to the consumption experience. And Briggs is happy it has found a home in Kalamazoo.

“It’s a really good growth story of both investing in automation and equipment, but also, you have to have the talent,” Briggs said. “The biggest part of our success is the people that we have inside of FlavorSum.”

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