Mapping the flavoring landscape: a comparative analysis of tobacco and related products

Tobacco use is unhealthy and addictive. Because flavors can enhance the appeal of tobacco and related products, various countries regulate flavors. Focusing regulations on the flavoring additives, rather than the sensory experience of flavors, may offer a more feasible regulatory strategy. However, flavoring-based approaches introduce challenges when exempting certain flavors, such as tobacco flavor in electronic cigarettes, as the relationship between a products' flavor and its flavoring content is not always straightforward. Additionally, it is unclear whether this relationship is consistent between product types.

We applied self-organizing maps to group tobacco and related products based on the similarity of their flavoring profile (=their combination of flavoring additives). Products were assigned to one of 100 units represented in a 10 × 10 two-dimensional grid, where units with similar flavoring profiles were located closer together. Subsequently, we analyzed and compared marketed flavor names of products with similar flavoring profiles.

Tobacco-based products, such as cigarettes and cigars, clustered closer together and were thus more similar in flavoring profile to each other than to electronic cigarettes and herbal products. Tobacco and non-tobacco products that clustered together shared flavorings predominantly associated with creamy-vanilla, sweet-fruity, or mint/menthol flavorings and flavors.

Our results indicate that for creamy-vanilla, sweet-fruity, and mint/menthol flavors, flavoring-flavor relationships can be generalized across product types. For other flavors both the base material (tobacco or non-tobacco) and the specific type of product needs to be considered when assessing flavoring-flavor relationships.

It is known that flavors such as fruit, vanilla, and mint/menthol are common across various tobacco and nicotine products. This study demonstrates that sweet-fruity, creamy-vanilla, and mint/menthol flavors can consist of similar flavoring additives across different tobacco and nicotine products. Additionally, we identified a great variety of flavoring profiles that appear to be product-specific. These insights may be useful for policymakers considering how flavors are formulated across different tobacco and nicotine products, particularly when evaluating whether certain regulatory approaches could apply broadly or require product-specific tailoring.