"Our health business is today a capability that is used more in pharma and cosmetics and there are tremendous opportunities to leverage into flavour developments," said Karen Crofts-Hotston, who has 30 years worth of experience in flavours and fragrances.
Flavours applications were already being drawn on heavily in areas related to health, such as augmenting taste after sodium reduction and replacing sugar with low calorie alternatives, said Crofts-Hotston. But she said there were other avenues that could be explored that were currently underdeveloped.
"Our natural flavours expertise, natural botanical/herbal extracts and other natural ingredients make us well placed to grow with the market. The health and wellness sector also opens up regular opportunities for masking a diverse array of nutrients via flavours as we all know taste is the key driver."
Crofts-Hotston also said the global firm saw considerable further potential for the savoury market, despite this area already representing a third of total European flavours sales. "In some of the sectors here there is excellent potential for further growth an example being the growing importance of ready meals as consumers react to the recession by dining more at home."
To take most advantage of these opportunities, Crofts-Hotston said she would seek to get to grips with the full range of raw materials available to Frutarom. She also aimed to develop the potential of recent acquisitions for the business. "In the UK, EAFI and more recently Aromco present welcome opportunities to enhance the Frutarom Flavours product portfolio and specialised applications expertise."