ScentSational Technologies Examines “The Moment of Opening” in WholeFoods Magazine

The consumer experience begins long before a supplement is taken. It starts with the first turn of the bottle cap, when aroma and other sensory cues begin shaping how a person judges the product’s quality and whether they trust it.

In a contributed article for WholeFoods Magazine, Barry Edelstein, President and CEO of ScentSational Technologies, and Steven M. Landau, Founder and Chief Technology Officer, look at this often-overlooked moment and what it means for supplement brands.

Why the Moment of Opening Matters

Supplement makers put a great deal of care into formulation, potency, and manufacturing, yet very little of that work is visible to the person holding the bottle. What a consumer can perceive is how the product looks, smells, and tastes. Anyone who has opened a bottle of fish-oil softgels knows how quickly aroma registers, and how long it can linger.

Edelstein and Landau argue that this makes the first sensory impression part of product quality, not a side effect of it, and that aroma and taste deserve the same deliberate attention as the formula. The article draws on psychology and sensory marketing research, including work on how quickly people form impressions of trustworthiness.

It also outlines the Experience Standard™: the expectation that a product’s quality should be as evident to the senses as it is provable on paper.

Read the Full Article

“The Moment of Opening,” by Barry Edelstein and Steven M. Landau, was published in WholeFoods Magazine on September 23, 2026.

Read the full article at WholeFoods Magazine ↗