Lemony chicken and a series of fortunate flavours

‘This was a serendipitous discovery,’ says Robert Cannon, whose team at International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF) in the US ‘took a deep dive into the unique flavour profile of fried chicken’ to discovered several lemon-scented thiophenes. The compounds could replace citral, a common lemon flavour whose instability has dogged food chemists for years.