Shipping Inquiries

We currently ship anywhere in Canada and the United States. 

We do our best to get your order out as quickly as possible. Shipping times may vary depending on your location, time of year, and chosen method of shipping. Our estimated time of arrival is approximately 5 -12 business days. Once your order is shipped, you will receive a tracking number, so you can easily monitor delivery.  

Unfortunately, no. Due to the consumable nature of this product, we are not able to accept returns. However, your experience is important to us. For more information please see our our shipping and returns policy or contact support@hedessent.ca with any issues, and a member of our team will follow up with you.

If you think your package may have been lost in transit, please send your order number or the tracking number you received to orders@hedessent.ca within one (1) week after the estimated delivery date, and a member of our team will assist you.

We are located in Ontario, Canada, and all of our small-batch flavours are manufactured on-site in an HACCP/GMP/ISO 9001:2015 certified facility free of allergenic materials.

About our Product

Our products are best used within two years of the date of manufacture, which is printed on every bottle.

Our products do not contain proteins, fats, or carbohydrates in quantities that would provide any caloric or nutritional value in a standard serving and are exempt from the Nutrition Facts Table and Labeling Requirements. Click here for more information about our ingredients.

All of our flavours are manufactured using FEMA GRAS synthetic flavour materials and/or food grade essential oils. Our flavours may contain pharmaceutical grade propylene glycol, water, sunflower oil, vegetable oil, or triacetin. Ingredients vary per flavour, depending on whether they are oil or water soluble. Our products do not contain:

  • any ingredients of animal origin
  • Ethanol
  • high intensity sweeteners or bulk sweeteners
  • monosodium glutamate (MSG) 
  • Genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

And are free of the following common allergenic compounds:

  • Crustaceans and molluscs
  • Eggs
  • Fish
  • Gluten
  • Milk
  • Mustard
  • Peanuts
  • Sesame
  • Soy
  • Sulphites
  • Tree Nuts
  • Wheat and Triticale

Opened flavours don’t require refrigeration – just store your bottles on your spice rack for easy access when you need it.

Our bottles come with built-in droppers for easy measuring. A 10ml bottle of food flavouring contains around 250-300 drops. A 60ml bottle is about 2,400 drops of concentrated flavour. That’s a lot of recipes! 

Cooking with Flavour

The easier question is, “What isn’t it good for?” Our flavourings can be added to food or drinks for a quick infusion of flavour. Add to cocktails, hot beverages, soups, sauces, vegetable dishes, desserts… the list is endless! The only limitation is your imagination.

Absolutely! Whether you love to cook or not, using our flavours is easy!. All it takes is a few simple drops in any dish or drink, and you’re good to go. If you are someone who enjoys making more elaborate dishes, our product will open up a world of flavour possibilities at a fraction of the cost, especially for some of those harder-to-find ingredients – did someone say Black Truffle?

For best results, add our flavours to your recipe by mixing a few drops into your wet ingredients. For sweet dishes, whipped cream or condensed milk is a great base to start experimenting with flavour. For savory dishes, try butters and oils. We recommend 5 drops per 100g of food to start as a baseline. Taste and then sweeten or season, adjusting as desired. Flavour your beverages by simply adding a few drops right into your coffee, tea, soda, or cocktail.

We get it. Working with such a wide array of food flavours may be new to you, and it can take some time to learn. But here are some fast and simple ways you can get started using our products.

FLAVOUR SAVORS

Frozen foods often lose some of their flavour during the freezing process. Add our flavours to brighten leftovers, frozen dishes, and anything that needs a quick pick-me-up!

FLAVOUR BOOSTERS:

Add a few drops to any food or drink for a quick boost of flavour! Need some coconut in your coffee? Some parmesan in your potatoes? Tomatoes in your tacos?  Add a few drops, and keep it flavourful without all the prep!

FLAVOUR YOUR WAY

Have some picky eaters in your house? Hedessent to the rescue! Everyone has their own unique tastes and favourite flavours. Give them what they want by flavouring individual servings differently to satisfy any palate!

Want more recipe inspo? Check out our recipe section or subscribe to The Art of Flavour on Youtube, where we share new recipes each week, or join our mailing list to receive Featured Recipes right in your inbox for easy access!

Our bottles come with built-in droppers for easy measuring. A 10ml bottle of food flavouring contains around 250-300 drops. A 60ml bottle is about 2,400 drops of concentrated flavour. That’s a lot of recipes! 

Understanding Flavour

We live in a day and age where we’ve been conditioned to believe that “artificial” means “bad.” There’s a lot of scientific and technical mumbo-jumbo we could say in response to that.

But the simple truth is there is no real difference between natural and artificial flavours, except for the origin of the components that make up the flavourings. In fact, there are several scientific reports that argue artificial food flavours are safer, due to the regulation and testing they go through before they can be consumed – not to mention the environmental benefits.

There are many reasons why artificial flavourings may even be preferred over the natural alternative. In a lot of cases, it’s due to cost and availability. Geographic location, farming, weather conditions, and transport to the point of sale can make the cost to acquire ingredients too high and unaffordable for the vast majority. And other times, it becomes an environmental issue, such as with natural coconut, which can only be sourced from one type of tree that grows only in Malaysia. The equipment, manpower, and drain on natural resources make it environmentally irresponsible to pursue large quantities of naturally-derived coconut flavouring. 

We offer natural flavours when it makes sense to do so and they can be sourced responsibly. But if they can’t, rest assured that the product you receive is identical in composition to its natural counterpart.

Salts such as sodium chloride (NaCl), trigger taste cells when sodium ions (Na+) enter through ion channels on microvilli at the cell’s apical, or top, surface. The accumulation of sodium ions causes an electrochemical change called depolarization that results in calcium ions (Ca++) entering the cell. The calcium, in turn, prompts the cell to release chemical signals called neurotransmitters from packets known as vesicles. Nerve cells, or neurons, receive the message and convey a signal to the brain. Taste cells repolarize, or “reset,” themselves in part by opening potassium ion channels so that potassium ions (K+) can exit.

Acids taste sour, because they generate hydrogen ions (H+) in solution. Those ions act on a taste cell in three ways: by directly entering the cell; by blocking potassium ion (K+) channels on the microvilli; and by binding to and opening channels on the microvilli that allow other positive ions to enter the cell. The resulting accumulation of positive charges depolarizes the cell and leads to neurotransmitter release.

Sweet stimuli, such as sugar or artificial sweeteners, do not enter taste cells but trigger changes within the cells. They bind to receptors on a taste cell’s surface that are coupled to molecules named G-proteins. This prompts the subunits (a, b, and g) of the G-proteins to split into a and bg, which activates a nearby enzyme. The enzyme then converts a precursor within the cell into so-called second messengers that close potassium channels indirectly. Just as important as ingesting the appropriate nutrients is not ingesting harmful substances. The universal avoidance of intensely bitter molecules shows a strong link between taste and disgust. Toxic compounds, such as strychnine and other common plant alkaloids, often have a strong, bitter taste. In fact, many plants have evolved such compounds as a protective mechanism against foraging animals. The sour taste of spoiled foods also contributes to their avoidance. All animals, including humans, generally reject acids and bitter-tasting substances at all but the weakest concentrations. The intense reactions of pleasure and disgust evoked by sweet and bitter substances appear to be present at birth and to depend on neural connections within the lower brain stem.

The strong link between taste and pleasure—or perhaps displeasure—is the basis of the phenomenon of taste-aversion learning. Animals, including humans, will quickly learn to avoid a novel food if eating it causes, or is paired with, gastrointestinal distress.

Didn’t find the answers you were looking for? Send us your question below, and a member of our team will follow up.