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In 2025, Custom Flavors is proud to celebrate its 20th anniversary, signifying two decades of flavor innovation and industry excellence. Food Chain is joined by Alex Wendling, President of Custom Flavors, and Matt Pulskamp, Vice President of Operations, to discuss the company’ s history and share behind-the-scenes insights into one of its biggest projects to date.
“ My father, Mike Wendling, and Cofounder, Steve Bishop, established Custom Flavors back in 2005,” Alex begins, reflecting on the business’ journey thus far.“ We started by providing flavors, colors and beverage mixes to my father’ s existing relationships from over 30 years in the industry. As we’ ve grown, we’ ve tailored our approach to focus on flavors and formulation support for, not only beverage bases and mixes, but bars, gummies, and supplements. We started out in a single unit – around 3500 square feet – in San Clemente, but we’ ve since expanded into three facilities across Southern California totaling more than 60,000 square feet.
“ Today, we specialize in natural, organic flavors, but we also service the artificial flavor market. We offer liquid and powder flavors in a large range of profiles, from fruits and desserts to nostalgic blends, anything from apple to cinnamon to bubblegum and chocolate. We also support product developers and innovation and marketing teams. We have an applications team on
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