Although food flavours are composed of distinct sensory properties — odours and tastes primarily — there is ample evidence that these properties are not perceived independently. Interactions between flavour qualities can be seen as reflecting repeated joint experience with those qualities. As a consequence, odours take on the properties of tastes, both perceptual and hedonic. Understanding these processes provides insight into the ways in which consumers perceive flavours, namely as synthetic, hedonically valenced wholes that form the basis of food choice.