Symrise Expands its Site in Mexico City

A 500 m2 area was dedicated to additional cutting-edge labs for the development and application of savory and sweet flavorings and beverage compounds.

11/07/08 Symrise has expanded its site in Mexico City by adding new laboratories for the development and application of flavorings and culinary concepts. The new head of the Mexican market is Sergio Hernández, who was recently named Director, Flavor & Nutrition Division of Symrise Mexico.

Dr. Heinz-Jürgen Bertram, Global President, Flavor & Nutrition officially opened the new facilities at the Symrise development center in Mexico City on June 25, 2008. A 500 m2 area was dedicated to additional cutting-edge labs for the development and application of savory and sweet flavorings and beverage compounds.

This significant expansion of the lab facilities in Mexico City was a step that greatly enhanced technical application capacities for working on joint client projects. The newly built "Chef Kitchen" will now be the site for developing culinary concepts with clients.

Since Symrise is already the market leader in the field of savory flavorings in Mexico, the focus of these expansion measures is not only on continuing to develop the company's competence in the savory sector, it is on also beverages. The size of the development lab for Sweet & Beverages was doubled, and application technology was given more room as well. The facility known as the "wet lab“ makes it possible to work with new pilot-plant equipment to create UHT products and soft drinks under industrial conditions on a laboratory scale.

The head of the Mexican market is Sergio Hernández, who was appointed the new Director of the Flavor & Nutrition division in Symrise Mexico on June 12, 2008. Hernández comes to Symrise from IFF, where he worked as the director of the flavors business unit for Mexico. Prior to that he held senior positions at Nestlé-FIS, Givaudan and Firmenich. Sergio Hernández is taking over the office previously held by Carsten Teiwes, who led the Flavor & Nutrition division from 2007 to April 2008 and has now returned to company headquarters in Holzminden.

Hans Holger Gliewe, President, Flavor & Nutrition, Latin America, says, “Mexico is one of the most important sales markets for flavorings in Latin America, and Symrise has been established there for many years as one of the leading flavoring suppliers. By building new labs, we are solidifying our position on the Mexican market. At the same time, we are creating a regional network with our other Latin American sites to create greater proximity to our clients and to process client projects more efficiently. In the creative culinary lab of the Chef Kitchen, we will be able to work closely with our clients, even from the development phase onwards. This will let us make optimum use of our regional growth opportunities and ideally integrate the expertise from our international network of chefs into the Mexican market. Beyond that, we have created a clear growth objective through our significantly enhanced expertise in beverage flavorings. Mexico is one of the most important soft-drink markets in the world, which is why we anticipate growth well above standard market rates in this sector.“