What do you need next?
A culture of innovation is as much about finding the right answers as it is about asking the right questions.
Throughout our 250-year odyssey, Givaudan’s pioneers have continually innovated new ways of creating flavours and fragrances by exploring questions in sensory experience.
Is it possible to intensify floral essences? What if we distilled the alcohol used for washing the pomades of flowers in enfleurage?
Louis Maximin Roure presented his first innovative solution in 1873 at the Universal Exhibition in Vienna: ‘concrete’ essences, based on fresh flowers like jasmine, rose, mimosa, and other plant material. This success was followed by another: ‘absolutes’, obtained from a process enabling a radical increase in the quantity of flowers used, which won the grand prize at the world fair in 1900. Together, these new extraction methods were a major step forward for the entire industry.
How can we combine synthetic and natural materials in prepared bases?
In response to their customers’ drive to create their own perfumes in-house, at the beginning of the 20th century Givaudan’s Marius Reboul innovated the original bases upon which they built the Company’s long-lasting reputation and success.
Exploring questions in sensory experience
Why not combine several essences to create unique fragrance compositions?
By answering this question, perfumers from Roure would later lead the way for others to create signature scents.
Where can the earth’s rarest essences be sourced? What are their properties?
So asked famed chemist Dr Ernest Guenther as he travelled the world for Fritzsche while researching his landmark work, The Essential Oils, first published in 1948 and still the industry reference today.
What happens if you dehydrate a flavour and reproduce it in powdered form?
This is the question that led scientists as Fries & Fries to develop a technique for spray drying to produce powdered flavours, enabling the development of powdered soft drinks and dessert mixes.
That same curiosity continues to drive the people of Givaudan today as we explore new ways to create, collaborate and innovate.
One of our most recent ventures is MISTA. Piloted in 2017 in the San Francisco Bay area as part of our new business development model, the collaborative project offers an answer to the question: How can we best support startups across the food and beverage industry?
Project Delight
Creating value through innovation means thinking outside of the box. What happens when you invite a flavourist to work with a perfumer in the creation of a fragrance? This is the idea behind Project Delight. To make it even more interesting, we added the dimension of body language, to help understand consumer responses to new products.
Watch the interview about Project Delight
Skin ecosystem
What can scientific research into human microbiota tell us about the skin ecosystem? How can this knowledge help us create disruptive and innovative active ingredients for skincare? These questions are being explored by our specialists in Active Beauty.