Key Interview: Frutarom President Addresses Trends in Natural Solutions

13 Mar 2017 --- Frutarom is rapidly developing global flavors and natural ingredient solutions, placing themselves as a leading competitor within the industry. Having been established since 1933 in the flavors and fragrance sector, there has never been a more demanding time for natural solutions.

FoodIngredientsFirst caught up with Yoni Glickman, President Natural Product Solutions at Frutarom who discussed the current market trends and some of innovative product solutions that the company is working towards. He explained: “We started this new entity at Frutarom about a year and a half ago called Natural Product Solutions so as to really put a focus on where we see significant opportunities based on market growth, consumer and industry trends.”

Frutarom has made several strategic acquisitions over the last couple of years, to enter more strongly the areas in which they see potential in. According to Glickman, one of the key areas for the business is the health ingredients business, where Frutarom has traditionally been a major supplier to the industry for natural botanical extracts. “We have extended our product range recently using Biotechnology to deliver plant nutrients in a bioavailable form,” he notes. “Within our natural products business, we want to be active across the whole of the supply chain from agriculture through to extraction and carrying on in formulation. We are able to supply natural solutions in the food, food supplement and beverage industry to our customers all over the world.”

Another key business area for Frutarom is natural color pigments extracted from botanical sources Glickman says: “We are working diligently to develop our agricultural footprint globally. We are currently working with growers around the globe to supply us with raw materials and, by working with research institutions and plant propagation companies in Israel; we work to optimize the plant sources so as to optimize the necessary actives in the plant sources

The third key area for Frutarom is Food Protection and dealing with natural antioxidants and antimicrobials “Here we feel that we have very strong technical advantages,” explains Glickman, “The ability to replace synthetic antioxidants in many of the food matrixes hasn’t been possible up until now. We are managing to move our solutions into far more complicated solutions, such as beverages and confectionary.”

The fourth platform that continues to be very important to Frutarom is the world of microalgae. Glickman has been involved in microalgae for many years, he says: “I think that it is a fantastic platform moving forward for 2017. Being able to deliver active nutrients in a very effective manner but which is also environmentally friendly is a very appealing and significant trend.”

Currently, Frutarom are working on several new strains of microalgae and mainly supplying ingredients to support the growth of natural products in the cosmetic ingredients markets. “An important focus for us is pigments which are coming from algae sources,” Glickman states. “There are multiple ingredients which can be derived from algae sources; we have our own algae technology and ability from this area. The idea is that they are integrated from the algae farms to the finished product formulations.” 

“Everything that can be natural could be natural,” he says. “At Frutarom that is what we are working on achieving in our daily work – to replace synthetic flavors, synthetic antioxidant, synthetic colors and this is critical to both the food industry and to our consumers.”

“In terms of the wider picture for Frutarom, and the future of natural products, these areas are where we see the global population moving towards,” he expresses, “Everybody wants to get away from synthetic ingredients and we have been spending the last couple of years looking at how we can really strengthen our footprint in this space.” 

“Frutarom is a significant consolidator,” says Glickman, “I would say that we have a fairly robust pipeline, so obviously we can expect doing those acquisitions especially the natural products space which we see at the core of our business. That will continue to happen, and we are currently expanding our capacities at 4 of our manufacturing sites, and in parallel with our new products we plan on expanding the business fairly dramatically during this next year.”

“We are going to be using VitaFoods 2017 to bring integrated solutions to our customers and to deliver content in the natural health ingredients, antioxidants and colors space,” he explains. “Our close cooperation with our customers allows us to bring a very wide portfolio of ingredients and knowledge in the food matrix,” he concludes.  

by Elizabeth Kenward