dsm-firmenich 2024 Leaders & Newsmakers

Jul 1st, 2024

Perfumery & Beauty president Emmanuel Butstraen shared, “The merger has brought new capabilities and reinforced our position to deliver added value to our customers, helping them delight consumers with product superiority across segments worldwide." (Kaiseraugst headquarters pictured)

courtesy of dsm-firmenich

Since the last edition of Perfumer & Flavorist, a new player has entered the market as a ‘category-of-one’ company, combining capabilities in a way that hasn’t been seen before.

In May 2023, Swiss fragrance & flavors house Firmenich and Dutch nutrition and health innovator DSM combined in a merger of equals formed by two iconic companies. The result, dsm-firmenich, just recently celebrated its first anniversary.

dsm-firmenich

Kaiseraugst, Switzerland and Maastricht, Netherlands

2023 Sales: €12.31 billion

The move has created a unique player with strengths in nutrition, health, and beauty.

Bringing together over 150 years of combined history, the merger has united two industry leaders with long-standing commitments to innovation and sustainability, with combined global revenues exceeding €12 billion.

dsm-firmenich in figures:
30,000 employees
340 locations globally in about 60 countries
15 research & development centers

dsm-firmenich currently has four business units that offer customers a one-stop shop for expertise in Perfumery & Beauty; Taste, Texture & Health; Health, Nutrition & Care; and Animal Nutrition & Health. Across these businesses, the company makes products as wide-ranging as fine fragrances, probiotics, skincare products, plant-based proteins and omega-3s.

“Our newly combined organization offers integrated solutions in fragrances, flavors and health, supported by innovation-led science. By leveraging our unique ingredients portfolio and creating new capabilities, we can bring something new to the market which no other company is currently capable of delivering,” said CEO Dimitri de Vreeze. “We look forward to bringing unparalleled innovations to the market and taking consumer products to the next level with active benefits, thereby enhancing wellbeing while fostering customer intimacy. Our purpose is to bring progress to life, by combining the essential, the desirable, and the sustainable.”

Dimitri de Vreeze, CEO, dsm-firmenichcourtesy of dsm-firmenich

A Legacy of Innovation

Both companies had rich histories, underpinned by science. Firmenich was founded in the garage of Charles Firmenich in 1895 in Geneva, while DSM transformed itself over the past century from a Dutch mining company to an innovator in nutrition and health.

These two parts are now merged into a much larger company with even more resources to address evolving consumer trends. dsm-firmenich invested more than €700 million in science and research in 2023 as the company aims to develop disruptive products and technologies with an end-to-end innovation approach.

The company’s innovation hasn’t gone unnoticed. dsm-firmenich was recognized as one of LexisNexis Intellectual Property Solutions Top 100 Global Innovators in 2024.

2023 A Year of Change

2023 was focused on integrating both companies into one, combining the strengths of each company’s pipeline, and creating synergies with novel joint concepts and tapping into cross-selling opportunities.

dsm-firmenich has a goal of reaching synergies of €350 million a year and getting an annual sales uplift of about €500 million by 2027.

2023 was also a challenging year in many ways with macro-economic headwinds, significant shifts in the geopolitical landscape, unprecedented dynamics in the vitamins industry, a high inflation environment, and weak demand as well as destocking.

Against this backdrop, the company took decisive and immediate actions, accelerating the company’s integration efforts, transforming its vitamins business and reviewing the portfolio - prioritizing high growth and higher margin segments.

The portfolio review culminated in an intention to separate the Animal Nutrition and Health business from the Group and bring it under a different ownership structure to deliver its full potential and prosper on its own path.

For this reason, the below report will only focus on the following business units: Perfumery & Beauty; Taste, Texture & Health; and Health, Nutrition & Care.

Perfumery & Beauty

dsm-firmenich’s Perfumery & Beauty (P&B) unit is a leading creation and innovation partner for some of the most iconic brands in consumer goods, lifestyle and luxury beauty. Powered by science-based innovations in fragrance and personal care, this business unit makes customers’ products more desirable, essential and sustainable, driving consumers’ preference.

Key priorities for P&B include green chemistry (sustainable scientific processes), conscious perfumery (the creation of sustainable fragrances and scents), and consumer-inspired innovation that delivers superior performance.

Emmanuel Butstraen, president, Perfumery & Beautycourtesy of dsm-firmenich

“The merger has brought new capabilities and reinforced our position to deliver added value to our customers, helping them delight consumers with product superiority across segments worldwide. In this new setup our perfumers can augment their creations, push the boundaries of performance, and develop solutions in a broadened portfolio, meeting and exceeding our customers’ continually evolving expectations,” said Perfumery & Beauty president Emmanuel Butstraen.

Reinventing Fragrance Encapsulation

PopScent^a Eco Max was one of P&B’s biggest innovations of 2023. We reinvented fragrance encapsulation, delivering outstanding long-lasting fragrance benefits, with the first range of capsules made with 100% biodegradable ingredients.

The PopScent Eco range delivers a lasting fragrance experience from wash to wear. Crafted with diverse chemistries and complementary performance profiles, these capsules empower perfumers with the most efficient and versatile tools, offering wide creative flexibility across categories. These versatile capsules, bring high creative and applications flexibility and meet the highest sustainability standards with no compromise on consumer experience.

Dual-Release Profragrances

In July 2023, we launched HaloScent^b BerryBoost, a fragrance innovation that releases two different perfumery molecules simultaneously, known as dual-release profragrances. These molecules, which have a low environmental impact due to their biodegradability, are activated through contact with air and water. With a new, patented natural activation technology, and a fruity olfactive profile, HaloScent BerryBoost lifts the overall product experience, increases the fragrance preference, and enhances consumers’ overall sense of satisfaction. It has applications not only in-home care but also in hair care.

New Exclusive Ingredients

In 2023, we launched an exclusive collection of six natural and synthetic ingredients. This includes two captive ingredients - unique, proprietary scents that cannot be replicated by other perfumers or fragrance houses–that were released to market for the first time. Both were carefully selected by our experts to bring sustainable solutions that meet relevant regulatory requirements to fragrance formulas worldwide. The first, Mimosal^c is an intense green muguet aldehydic note. It is highly performing and offers a long-lasting effect. The second captive ingredient, Ambrette FIRABS, is a unique signature and accessible substitute for Ambrette Absolute.

Two other exclusive ingredients launched in 2023 are Lilyflore^d and Upcycled Cardamom Green Pod Guatemala SFE. Lilyflore is a key ingredient in the floral fragrance market, delighting perfumer palettes with its versatile and modern lily-of-the-valley facets. Upcycled Cardamom Green Pod Guatemala SFE, was created using our Supercritical Fluid Extraction (SFE) technology. SFE offers several advantages over other extraction technologies, as it reduces solvent use, energy consumption, and emissions while maintaining the integrity of sensitive compounds.

The final two ingredients launched were the powerful and complex Doremox^e, which serves as an excellent replacement for rose oxide, and cyclopidene, which, with its distinctive ylang-ylang quality, functions as a performing alternative to methylparacresol. Predominately biodegradable and designed according to the principles of green chemistry, this collection underlines our leadership and core strength in sustainability.

dsm-firmenich drives the development of disruptive products and technologies with an end-to-end innovation approach.courtesy of dsm-firmenich

‘Wonder You’

In 2023, we introduced ‘Wonder You’, a global-reaching, cross-segmental beauty offering in the menopause category. This comprehensive product line for skin and hair care includes sun protection factor, cream, serum, shampoo, and conditioner. Every solution in this collection has been designed to align with consumer trends toward holistic well-being, mindfulness, and celebration of individuality. The ‘Wonder You’ collection affirms our global leadership in providing scientifically proven solutions for menopause with a leading sustainability profile.

Taste, Texture & Health

The dsm-firmenich merger also brought together two highly complementary businesses with extensive capabilities in taste, nutrition and functionality in order to provide delicious, nutritious and sustainable products that deliver unique and superior consumer experiences.

The Taste, Texture & Health (TTH) business unit is led by Patrick Niels, driving advantages from the merger through cross-selling and offering customers new, integrated solutions.

TTH consists of Taste, which includes flavors, natural extracts, sugar reduction solutions – and Ingredients Solutions, which includes food enzymes, hydrocolloids, cultures, natural colorants, nutritional ingredients, yeast extracts and plant-based proteins. The business unit brings progress to life by tackling some of society’s biggest challenges: providing nutritious, healthy and sustainable food and beverages, offering appealing taste and texture, and nourishing a growing global population whilst minimizing food loss and waste.

Patrick Niels, president, Taste, Texture & Healthcourtesy of dsm-firmenich

“Our passion for the science and emotion of food extends from discovery to application, via the customer to the end-consumer. Leveraging our broad portfolio of unique ingredients and intrinsic creativity, we deliver solutions for every taste and occasion. This includes drinks with little or no sugar, dairy products with consumer-preferred mouthfeel, succulent savory bites, and nutritious plant-based alternatives that are healthier and better for people and planet,” said Patrick Niels, President Taste, Texture & Health.

In 2023, we continued to increase our investments in the digital transformation of our science and innovation capabilities for TTH, with the goal of being able to generate and combine consumer, customer, and technical data insights faster.

Taste and Ingredient Solutions began joint acceleration growth programs in 2023 in sugar reduction and plant-based products. Combining the taste, texture and health capabilities of both divisions enabled us to address the challenges customers experience in reducing sugar and making meat, fish, and dairy alternatives tastier. For instance, our SmartProteins Masking solutions helped make plant-based dairy more delicious. With Smart TX PRO we can now create the right mouthfeel, bite and chew to craft customers’ products to meet evolving consumer expectations.

Lactose-free Dairy Products

In early June, we launched Maxilact® Next, the fastest-acting lactase enzyme on the market, to enable lactose-free dairy products to be produced more efficiently and sustainably. By optimizing production processes such as yield and throughput time, we help customers to effectively manage both unit costs and carbon footprint. We also continued to make good progress in developing comprehensive information such as carbon footprint statements and Environmental Product Declarations.

Expansion in India

dsm-firmenich acquired full ownership of the Indian company VKL Seasoning Pvt Ltd. in April 2023. Founded in 1996, VKL is the market leader in spices and flavors in India. The company is known for its strong understanding of flavors and leading reputation among Indian customers. VKL helps us further expand our seasoning capabilities and customer reach in India while expanding our raw material palette for clean label ingredients.

Excellence in Flavor Science Award for Eric Frérot

Eric Frérot, one of our Distinguished Scientists, received the Excellence in Flavor Science Award from the Flavor Extract Manufacturers’ Association (FEMA). This is awarded to specialists who have made an exceptional contribution to flavor science – so it is an outstanding achievement and a testament to our world-class Science & Research team.

Peach+ Announced as Flavor of the Year

In December, we announced Peach+ as the Flavor of the Year for 2024, celebrating consumers’ desire for exciting new ingredients and bold, adventurous flavor creation. Peach+ was inspired by emerging signals in the cultural and consumer landscape and a wide variety of influences, including culinary, fashion, design, and art. The Flavor of the Year empowers our customers to be leaders in global trends. Peach+ is an invitation to our customers to innovate with this flavor, to transcend its traditional juicy-sweet aspects and also incorporate softer, smoother, lighter, more refreshing textural elements.

Health, Nutrition & Care

dsm-firmenich believes that health is intrinsically complementary to nutrition and well-being. This is also a field that is highly synergetic with the other two business units - P&B and TTH–and is based on leading-edge scientific research, technologies and manufacturing excellence.

Health, Nutrition & Care (HNC) offers solutions for markets including early-life nutrition, dietary supplements, pharmaceuticals, medical nutrition, and biomedical materials. The business unit also addresses specific consumer nutritional and wellness needs through its direct-to-consumer i-Health business.

Philip Eykerman, president, Health, Nutrition & Carecourtesy of dsm-firmenich

“HNC is dedicated to supporting the health of the world’s growing population through nutrition and care solutions. The unit delivers nutritional solutions that support well-being and proactive health at every stage of life and for every lifestyle,” said Health, Nutrition & Care President Philip Eykerman.

The product range includes vitamins, nutritional lipids, minerals, carotenoids, botanical nutraceuticals, digestive enzymes, probiotics and prebiotics, active pharmaceutical ingredients and biomedical solutions.

In 2023, we became the only nutrition player with a full suite of taste capabilities, including flavors, blockers and masking systems, encapsulation technologies and delivery systems. These capabilities allow us to tackle the sensory challenges associated with many nutritional ingredients, such as B vitamins, lipids, minerals, botanicals, and proteins, and to open the door to more innovation in new consumer-preferred delivery formats.

Algae-based Alternative to omega-3

Omega fatty acids support cardiovascular health as well as cognitive and immune function. However, less than 20% of people worldwide consume the recommended 250 mg per day. This is partly due to concerns regarding their impact on marine ecosystems. In 2023, we achieved a significant milestone with the launch of life’s^fOMEGA O3020. This is the first and only single-source algal omega-3 with the same EPA-to-DHA ratio naturally found in standard fish oil, but with twice the potency. The our life’s portfolio has a lower environmental impact than fish-based alternatives.

Gut Health

In 2023, we further strengthened our ‘Health from the gut’ offering to meet the growing demand for nutritional solutions that have scientifically backed health benefits combined with easy application and novel product formats. These clinically proven products include our next-generation Humiome® pre-, pro-and postbiotics, Tolerase^g digestive enzymes, and Quali® vitamins.

In July 2023, dsm-firmenich completed the acquisition of Adare Biome, a pioneer in the development and manufacture of postbiotics. Our strong infrastructure, commercialization and science capabilities will enable us to substantially scale up Adare Biome’s industry-leading scientific research.

HMO Infant Nutrition Ingredients Approved in China

As a leader in HMO development and production, we are continuously pioneering advances and expanding our offering across the early-life nutrition market.

HMOs are an important component of human breast milk and have been shown to play a role in infant health by supporting immune function, gut health and, potentially, cognitive development. A growing body of scientific evidence outlining their potential benefits has shown HMOs as a powerful emerging ingredient that brings the composition of infant formula closer to that of breast milk, the gold standard of infant nutrition.

In 2023, following rigorous evaluations, two of our HMOs were approved as nutrition fortifiers for specific infant and young child products in China. This approval in China marks a significant milestone, signaling the successful navigation of a multi-year, multi-phase regulatory process that allows the unique benefits of HMOs to be accessible to infants and young children.

i-Health Consumer Business

i-Health, our direct-to-consumer business, has continued to thrive, through its focus on products serving the gut health and women’s health segments, thanks to increased interest in immunity and overall health and wellness. The key launch in women’s health was Estroven^h Complete + Ashwagandha, supporting menopause symptom management.

Our Culturelle® probiotic range continued to attract strong consumer interest. Key US launches included Culturelleⁱ Women’s Health 4-in-1 Protection Capsules, which contain one of the world’s most effective probiotic strains, designed to promote women’s vaginal, urinary, digestive, and immune health.

Science & Research

Today’s challenges demand visionary solutions. Building on a pioneering tradition that reaches back over 150 years, dsm-firmenich’s Science & Research community comprises more than 2,000 employees working on innovation across 15 R&D hubs around the world. The teams are united in the pursuit of sustainable and transformative innovation for nutrition, health, and beauty.

With a track record of world-class scientific leadership and a uniquely broad portfolio of ingredients, the company applies creative expertise and proven science to improve health and well-being and address the global challenges of sustainable delivery.

Sarah Reisinger, Chief Science & Research Officercourtesy of dsm-firmenich

“Our Science & Research teams bring together proven strengths in developing sustainable and market-leading solutions validated by rigorous, science-backed evidence. We’re driven by our passion to help shape the future of nutrition, health, and beauty - and our continued investment in state-of-the-art capabilities,” said Chief Science & Research Officer Sarah Reisinger, Ph.D.

dsm-firmenich drives the development of disruptive products and technologies with an end-to-end innovation approach. Sustainability is embedded from the outset and throughout every

stage of the process - from discovery, application testing and clinical studies to scale-up and industrialization.

By harnessing the expertise of our scientists and investing in our multidisciplinary approach, Science & Research brings progress to life, driving innovation that addresses global challenges and unmet needs in nutrition, health and beauty.

We provide industry-leading science and research capabilities that drive the innovation required to deliver on our purpose and to provide differentiated solutions that combine the essential, the desirable, and the sustainable.

Shaping the Future

Sustainability sits at the core of our strategy and is deeply embedded in every single part of our business. We want to be a force for good. So we partner with suppliers, customers and worldwide organizations to make a measurable difference now, and for the long run.

To increase the sustainability of our global food systems, we are also helping drive the transition to plant-based proteins to enable better health while supporting the decarbonization of food value chains.

We continue to see significant and growing interest from our customers in understanding the impact of their products, as they aim to reduce Scope 3 emissions on their own net-zero journey. We are determined to satisfy this interest through our services and value propositions.

We catalyze industry-wide change through global engagement and continuous support for customers who are navigating their own sustainability transformations, offering collaboration and guidance to support the delivery of eco-friendly products that respond to consumers’ aspirations for a healthier planet.