Symrise Receive Fair-Trade Certification for Vanilla Products

It was only a few months ago that the Holzminden-based fragrance and flavoring manufacturer Symrise announced it had received the organic seal for selected vanilla extracts.

17/06/09 Symrise claims to be the first company in the industry to have received fair-trade certification for bourbon vanilla extracts from the highly renowned Swiss organization Flocert. Beyond that, Symrise also supports farmers in Madagascar in cultivating vanilla, invests in training and continuing education measures and implements these programs on site throughout the entire production process. On Madagascar Symrise is the only flavorings manufacturer to maintain its own network of hundreds of farmers, and it extracts the vanilla on site. This means it has an influence on the entire value chain, from the farming and harvest to the selection of the right pods and fermentation all the way to the extract and the flavoring that results.

“Fair trade is another critical building block in our international vanilla strategy, as well as being a logical result of the market's demands and our performance in the field of natural vanilla,” says Oliver Nembach, who is in charge of business development in vanilla at Symrise. “We want to enhance our high standards by adding a social component which supports vanilla farmers while also offering our clients a special quality that creates new marketing potential for them. A product like this can only be achieved if you're willing to invest at the source,” Nembach continues.

Symrise not only initiated the fair-trade certification process because of its sense of corporate accountability and its CSR program; it also sees this step as a reflection of consumers' growing preference for responsible consumption. Last year the market for fair-trade products in Germany grew by 50%. In Scandinavian countries the number grew to over 70%, while in Canada it was more than 60%, with international averages of 22%.

So far the market has not regularly had a bourbon vanilla extract that was suitable for developing and launching complex fair-trade products such as chocolate, ice cream and cookies. Symrise has now closed this gap.

“In addition to organic and fair trade issues, the overall quality of vanilla flavorings is currently being critically discussed by the general public, and on top of that, the new EC flavoring regulations are creating major challenges for the food industry. When it comes to our vanilla extracts and natural vanilla flavorings, Symrise clients can rest assured that when it says natural vanilla, it is natural vanilla,” says Dirk Bennwitz, Senior Vice President Strategic Business Unit Sweet at Symrise.