Firmenich Reports Record Sales in 2010 Fiscal Year

Both Perfumery and Flavor sales posted double-digit local currency growth, with a particularly strong rebound in Fine Fragrance during the second half of the year. Perfume and Flavor Ingredient sales also recorded a strong performance.

Oct 13 2010 --- For its 2010 fiscal year, ended June 30, 2010, Firmenich posted record sales of CHF 2.87 billion, an increase of 12.1% in local currencies, 8.7% in Swiss Francs, regaining its position as growth leader in the fragrance and flavor industry.

Both Perfumery and Flavor sales posted double-digit local currency growth, with a particularly strong rebound in Fine Fragrance during the second half of the year. Perfume and Flavor Ingredient sales also recorded a strong performance.

Geographically, emerging markets posted the strongest growth, followed by a robust sales progression in North America and Western Europe.

Firmenich continued to develop its presence across global markets during the year, opening a new affiliate in Dubai to serve the Gulf region, a new state-of-the art perfume and flavor development center in Brazil to serve Latin America, and a new Perfume ingredients plant in India to support our global perfumery business.

The Firmenich Group continued to invest approximately 10 percent of its annual turnover in innovation, including new ingredients and the continuous improvement of production processes.

The end of the 2010 fiscal year also marked the close of Firmenich’s ambitious five-year Sustainability plan, 2005-2010. All seven sustainability goals were exceeded and new ones were set for 2015.

Compared to its 2005 base, Firmenich reduced its CO2 emissions by 24.0%, its energy use by 26.0% and its process water usage by 23.0% over the five-year period. It also embarked on efforts to increase the proportion of clean energy used to power its manufacturing plants, installing solar panels at its sites in Geneva, South Africa, Brazil and the US. The US solar installation, opened in June 2010, is one of the largest in the N.E. of the U.S., with over 3’000 photovoltaic panels.

New Sustainability goals for 2015 were set, including further reductions in environmental indicators, further safety improvements and an ambitious target of 90% of manufacturing facilities to be partially powered by renewable energy by 2015.