The State of Affairs
We Follow up Words with Deeds. You May Assess Us on the Basis of Both.
The fragrance and flavor market is valued at some € 13 to 14 billion and has an annual growth of approximately two to three percent. Some regions are growing more strongly than others. In the emerging markets of Asia, Latin America, eastern Europe, Africa, and the Middle East disposable per capita income and the demand for consumer goods is growing every year.
Almost 40 percent of our sales is made conducting business with and in “emerging markets”. Success with regional customers in these regions of the world is due in no small part to our presence in those countries. We see promising potential to grow with both the regional and the multinational companies using local operations.
The Scent & Care and Flavor & Nutrition divisions are approximately equal in size and have similar profitability levels. We have expanded our divisional structure in the last years and have integrated many capacities into their areas of responsibility. Purchasing, production, and quality control were already made the operative responsibility of the divisions in 2006 and research was added in 2007. This way we are able to assure that research and development never lose sight of marketability, the benefits to the customer and consumer as well as sales potential.
We continued our efforts to intensify customer relations in 2007. Together with our customers, we worked on several successful product launches and sales growth was up largely because we were able to maintain and even expand our core list positions with strategic key customers. Our medium-term goals are to gain entry into the last core list in Flavor & Nutrition and secure more of these prized positions with our Scent & Care customers.
With our top 10 customers, we increased sales for both divisions.