The founder and chief executive of a flavours and fragrances firm is set to appear on TV next week.

East Anglian Daily Times: Business Mag - Sarah Chambers; Feature on award winning company Omega Ingredients, based in Blakenham, Suffolk.; This is Steve Pearce [manager].; pics by Alex Fairfull 26-02-10Business Mag - Sarah Chambers; Feature on award winning company Omega Ingredients, based in Blakenham, Suffolk.; This is Steve Pearce [manager].; pics by Alex Fairfull 26-02-10 (Image: Archant)

Biochemist Steve Pearce, of Omega Ingredients in Great Blakenham, will feature on a special ITV Tonight programme focused on flavour and taste. It will be hosted by Jonathan Maitland and is aired at 7.20pm on Tuesday.

The programme highlights the value and importance of the British flavour industry.

Steve is involved in creating ingredients including a raspberry flavour using only natural ingredients and a raspberry puree, made from fresh blended raspberries. Two ice-cream syrups, one made with 10% raspberries and another with with 0.10% natural flavour, are taken to Hardwick Middle School Sports Academy, where they undergo taste tests on ice cream.

“For a flavouring to be described as natural, it must be 100% derived from natural sources,” he said.

“If we were to use real raspberries to flavour every available raspberry-flavour product in the UK, then we would need to grow raspberries on every available inch of ground across the UK, which clearly is not practical.”

“Natural flavourings also support the health food industry. Diet food and beverages need to taste good, otherwise it doesn’t matter what the nutritional value is, if it doesn’t taste good, no one will eat it.”

As an expert in recreating “extinct and impossible” aromas, Steve recreated the odour of “Cleopatra’s Hair”, “The Last Meal of a Condemned Man” and the smell of Moon Dust for an art exhibition. Most recently Omega Ingredients was commissioned by Friends Reunited to create The “Scents of a Decade” of the 70s (“Night Fever”), 80s (“Vice”) and 90s (“Take Spice”). His work is featured in the BBC2 food science series “E numbers – An Edible Adventure” with Stefan Gates, CBBC’s “Little Howard’s Big Question”, Channel Four’s “Food Unwrapped” and Channel Four’s “SuperScrimpers” in March where he compared designer and own label perfumes available on the high street.

Steve recently became one of the first people to be awarded the Certified Food Scientist (CFS) credential through the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) at this year’s Annual Meeting & Food Expo in Chicago, in July.

He is a Chartered Scientist and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a member of the British Society of Perfumers, Past President of The British Society of Cosmetic Scientists and Past President of The British Society of Flavourists, which in 1989 awarded Steve the William Littlejohn Memorial Silver Medal.

Omega Ingredients was founded in 2001 by biochemists Steve Pearce and Elizabeth Pearce.