Mapping Flavor Profiles for Wine w/ Katerina Axelsson, Tastry

Frustrated by a lack of understanding of consumer taste preferences and a lack of data-driven decision-making about winemaking, Katerina Axelsson, CEO and Co-Founder of Tastry, built an AI and chemical analysis system to solve this. With custom-built algorithms that take chemical analysis and develop flavor profiles and a database of consumer taste preferences that map to the US’s 248M adults, Tastry is paving a new, innovative way to use data to make and market wine. Detailed Show Notes:  Tastry was founded around 6 years ago, but 1st 4 were more of an R&D project, officially launched Dec 2021The wine industry is trying to anticipate what consumers wantNew wines have an 85% failure rate in the 1st yearPeople describing flavors in wine doesn’t correlate with if they like it Tastry uses AI and Machine Learning with chemical analysis to break down a wine’s flavor 2 databases - wine’s flavor profile and consumer taste preferences that are matched together Wine databaseAnalyze 10,000’s of wines/yearChemical analysis is done in-house on standardized equipment but with proprietary softwareThe Top 2,000 wines based on IRI annually are analyzed to build a baseline data set as wineries’ samples are proprietary Consumer taste databaseDid double-blind tasting panels, asking consumers if they both liked or did not like wines; the negative preference is important for the flavor profile buildingConsumers also asked analog questions that became the Recommended by Tastry quizUse algorithms to relate data and predict preferences for the rest of the population (248M taste profiles)Can now predict individual consumer taste profiles if they take the Tasty quiz with 93% accuracy in how they would rate the winePalates are very unique; the largest cohort is only 13 peopleDemographics don’t show a lot of differences in taste preferences Customers - work with >100 wineries, 22 of 25 largest wineries Winemaker use casesComputational Blending - uses simulation to match profiles from different blends and adjustments; winemakers set parameters on what they are trying to achieveWinery had to switch from barrels to adjustments to 5x production and used blending to get a similar profileNavigating smoke taint (3k tons, $10M worth of fruit) - came back with a recipe that solved the issueMaintaining year-over-year consistency Winery marketing use casesRecommended by Tastry plug-in for wine clubsLook more at finished wines and at competitive sets and overlap of consumer preferences Retailer use casesRecommender helps get more niche brands discoveredThere is more traction for e-retailers now; pilots with big box retailersDec 2023 - Tastrt will announce a scalable way to access a broad # of wines Strong ROI - 44-215x, benefits mainly cost savings, increased revenue Business model - Vertical SaaS with consumption-based modelSubscription to dashboardLab analysis of samples provides ~$3,000 worth of analysis for a $370 list priceCompublend - per simulation chargeAccess to competitive data sets from the Top 2,000 winesPricing is the same for winemakers, marketing, and retailers Raised ~$10M in funding from individuals, early stage VC’s, and strategic investors (wine, AI, retail) Get access to library episodes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.