Flavor Team
We specialize in flavor innovations and development.
The Flavor Insights flavor team works its magic inside a state-of-the-art West Coast facility specializing in innovation and development of flavor and product architecture. The renovated 110,000 square foot manufacturing facility in Benicia, CA is optimized to oversee every aspect of the refined process: spray dry, plating, and liquid flavor manufacturing.
A little about our flavor team: Greg Pickett, former CEO & Founder of CytoSport, Inc., formulator of Muscle Milk and founder and Chairman of Flavor Insights. Greg has nearly 50 years in product formulation with an emphasis in protein architecture and taste. Pickett enjoyed overseeing the formulation and product development side of the CytoSport business for many years. The flavor, taste and organoleptic properties of beverages have always been a keen interest, and FI was born from a desire to apply that passion as an active contributor in the space.
Pickett leads the FI Sensory Evaluation Committee, working alongside industry veterans with over twenty years of experience to provide oversight in flavor development.
Pickett is joined at Flavor Insights by his two children, Nikki Brown and Michael Pickett. The family worked together to found and grow CytoSport for nearly 20 years – from its first retail offering of Cytomax, then Muscle Milk and until its acquisition to Hormel in 2014.
Michael was one-time President and CEO, and most recently oversaw sales for the business’s specialty division. As Chief Marketing Officer, Nikki oversaw all aspects of the brand’s outbound communication and customer facing efforts – including events, advertising, packaging, promotions, and new product launches.
The family, working together again, brings with them all of their key learnings and best practices from CytoSport and is enjoying building a new company that leverages their specialized, unmatched experiences and successes.
Richard J. Grame, a licensed pharmacist with a dual degree in Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Science also works alongside Pickett on the Sensory Evaluation Committee. Richard has worked in the industry for over 40 years. He entered as a trainee, became a flavor chemist and eventually started and ran his own flavor company, Western Flavors and Fragrances. He sold his business and now consults in the space.
