What Is WONF and Why It Matters on a Flavor Label

Three letters on a flavor label that most people skip right past — WONF. If you care about what goes into your food, you should know exactly what those three letters mean.

WONF stands for “with other natural flavors”

When a flavor label reads “natural lavender flavor WONF,” it means the product contains lavender flavor — but that lavender flavor has been supplemented with other natural flavoring agents that are not lavender. These additional flavors are used to enhance, round out, or extend the primary flavor while keeping manufacturing costs lower.

The critical word is “other.” A WONF lavender extract is not pure lavender. It is lavender plus something else — and that something else does not have to be disclosed beyond the catch-all term “natural flavors.”

Why manufacturers use WONF

Some botanical extracts are extraordinarily expensive to produce at scale. Pure Bulgarian rose extract, pure saffron, pure vanilla are among the most costly flavor ingredients in the world. WONF formulations allow manufacturers to stretch a small amount of the expensive ingredient with other natural flavors that complement or mimic it, bringing cost down while maintaining a labeling claim that sounds premium.

This is a legal and common practice in flavor manufacturing. It is also a practice that Angel Bake does not use.

What is in the “other natural flavors”?

This is the part that matters most to buyers who read labels carefully. The FDA defines natural flavors broadly: Any flavoring substance derived from plant or animal material through physical, microbiological, or chemical processes. That is a wide net. “Other natural flavors” in a WONF extract could include carrier compounds derived from unrelated plants, flavor modifiers that enhance sweetness, natural flavor chemicals isolated from other botanical sources, or masking agents that suppress off-notes.

None of these need to be named individually. They all travel under the label “natural flavors”, which tells you nothing about their origin, function, or sourcing.

Does WONF mean lower quality?

Not necessarily. WONF formulations can perform well in many applications. But they represent a different product category than a pure extract. If you are buying a lavender extract because you want pure lavender  from a specific growing region, with the full terpene profile of the botanical.  A WONF product will not deliver that.

Angel Bake and WONF

Every product in the Angel Bake Culinary Aromatics and Pure Infusions collection is WONF-free. Our Bulgarian lavender extract contains Bulgarian lavender.  Our Bulgarian Rose extract contains Bulgarian Rose. Our Moroccan orange blossom extract contains Moroccan neroli Bigarade. Our Willamette Valley peppermint extract contains Willamette Valley peppermint.

Explore the Angel Bake Culinary Aromatics collection →

An Angel Bake post by Saena Baking Co.

Why Artificial Flavor Is Getting a Bad Reputation — and What to Do About It

Something has shifted in how people think about what is in their food. A label that once said “artificially flavored” was unremarkable. Today it is a reason not to buy. Consumer rejection of artificial flavors has accelerated faster than most food manufacturers anticipated — and the trend shows no sign of reversing.

The label-reading revolution

A generation of consumers has grown up reading ingredient labels as a matter of course. What was once the behavior of a niche health-conscious minority is now mainstream. People want to know what is in their food — and when they see “artificial flavor” on a label, the immediate question is: artificial how? Artificial from what? Made to taste like what?

The answer is often complicated. Many artificial flavors are synthesized from petroleum-derived chemicals. Others are produced through chemical modification of natural compounds. The FDA definitions do not make this easy for a consumer to parse — and the opacity is itself the problem.

What consumers are actually asking for

Clean-label research consistently shows that consumers want three things from flavoring: recognizable ingredients they could theoretically source themselves, transparency about origin, and fewer simpler ingredients rather than more complex ones.

This is exactly what a pure botanical extract delivers. “Organic alcohol, water, and steam-distilled Bulgarian lavender” is three ingredients with three clear origins. Every word on that label tells a story someone can understand and verify.

Propylene glycol: the ingredient that accelerated the conversation

One ingredient in particular has driven consumer concern about flavor products in recent years: propylene glycol. A synthetic carrier used in many commercial flavor extracts, propylene glycol is FDA-approved for food use but has faced growing scrutiny as consumers research what is actually in their extracts. When people discover their current brand uses propylene glycol as a carrier, many do not buy it again.

Angel Bake Culinary Aromatics extracts contain no propylene glycol. The carrier is food-grade organic alcohol — a carrier with a history in food as long as food itself.

What “natural flavor” does not tell you

The FDA definition of natural flavor is broad enough to include flavors derived from natural sources through extensive chemical processing — flavors that arrive at a flavor house as raw botanical material and leave as isolated chemical compounds bearing little resemblance to the plant they came from.

This is why the most discerning buyers have moved beyond “natural vs artificial” as the relevant distinction. The better question is: is this a pure extract of a real botanical, or is it a flavoring product assembled from a combination of natural-source compounds? The former is what Angel Bake makes.

The pure extract answer

A pure botanical extract is the cleanest possible answer to the artificial flavor conversation. There is no synthesis, no chemical modification, no WONF, no propylene glycol, no added sugar. The plant is harvested at peak expression. The flavor compounds are captured through steam distillation or cold extraction. The result is bottled.

What you taste is the botanical — sourced from the place in the world where that botanical grows best. Bulgarian rose from the Rose Valley. Moroccan neroli from the orange blossom groves. Cardamom from high-altitude farms. Peppermint from Oregon’s Willamette Valley.

That is a supply chain decision — one that costs more and demands more rigorous sourcing than assembling a flavor from commodity compounds. It is also exactly what the modern flavor-aware buyer is looking for.

Explore the Angel Bake Culinary Aromatics collection →

An Angel Bake post by Saena Baking Co.