IFF Natural Ethics Ingredient Line Launches With Vanilla Offering

IFF launches its Natural Ethics line of ingredients to meet demand for high-quality natural flavor and fragrance ingredients, expecting its first vanilla offering to be available next year. In the firm’s Moving Forward report, the company announces other green initiatives launched in 2012, 2013.

International Flavors & Fragrances will introduce a line of select natural ingredients under the Natural Ethics label that will meet new customer demands while enhancing sustainability practices, the firm reports.

In its Sustainability Report for 2012, titled “Moving Forward,” the New York-based firm reported that it has launched the new ingredient program to offer “a line of select natural ingredients to meet the standards sought by our customers.”

The program will involve partnerships for sourcing natural materials in a manner that “protects communities' social fabric and environmental resources” while ensuring the company's ongoing access to the materials, according to the report.

“Looking ahead, we plan to identify one Natural Ethics ingredient each year,” the company reports. The firm's selection process will be guided by a sustainable risk assessment of natural ingredients on the market, IFF notes.

This year, the firm is cultivating the first in the Natural Ethics palette – vanilla from Madagascar. The ingredient, to be dubbed Natural Ethics Vanilla, will serve as a model for subsequent projects, according to the report.

The first Natural Ethics Vanilla will be available in 2014, according to the firm.

IFF notes that vanilla is one of the most important and widely used flavor profiles in the industry today, and due to its versatility, it’s a favorite of formulators.

The material's rich taste in foods and “emotional appeal” in fragrances also make it a favorite among consumers, the company notes. “Vanilla has global appeal that crosses cultures and demographics, making it one of the world's most popular flavors,” according to the firm.

However, there is a challenge to sourcing fair-trade and/or organic vanilla and keeping it reasonably priced, according to IFF.

While IFF already has fair trade-certified and organic vanilla beans in its flavor and fragrance palette, the beans are more expensive than traditional vanilla beans and “still do not have all of the attributes that we and our customers are seeking,” says the company.

The Natural Ethics program will enable IFF to maintain a “high level of excellence and be more competitive” by working with a supplier partner to develop a system that will yield 100% traceable, high-quality natural vanilla beans through a long-term agreement, according to the company.

The program is also beneficial to farmers involved. In return for commitments with the company, farmers will receive guaranteed fair pricing and payments timed to provide a more steady income and coincide with agricultural cycles, IFF notes.

The program will also support children's education, health, nutrition and environmental responsibility projects for participating farmers and communities, the company adds.

“Through this program, IFF can meet the needs of our customers by delivering a sustainable supply of traceable, ethical vanilla that improves the welfare of farmers and their families in Madagascar,” the firm says.

Swiss fragrance company Firmenich recently announced its own efforts to source vanilla responsibly. In March, the firm reported that it was commercializing bourbon vanilla sourced from Rainforest Alliance-certified farms in Madagascar.

Firmenich worked with local partners in Madagascar to help a local vanilla bean co-operative earn the RAC certification, which ensures sustainability, environmental protection and social equality, according to the firm.

During the Sustainable Cosmetics Summit in New York in May, cosmetic marketers discussed how creating partnerships with suppliers can benefit the communities from which materials are sourced and improve the availability of ingredients (Also see "Natural Marketers Discuss Ingredient-Sourcing Challenges, Greenwashing" - HBW Insight, 27 May, 2013.)

Enhancing Materials, Suppliers

According to IFF's report, the company purchases around 9,000 raw material products from more than 2,200 suppliers. Of those, 50% are natural or crop-related and 50% come from synthetics and chemicals.

IFF has launched a number of other initiatives to enhance its portfolio and ensure that it is partnering with ethical suppliers.

The firm recently announced a partnership with renewable fragrance company Amyris Inc. to develop sustainable, cost-effective and reliable sources of key fragrance ingredients (Also see "IFF Pursues Sustainable Ingredients Development To Drive Fragrance Biz" - HBW Insight, 20 May, 2013.).

Amyris, which has already partnered with Givaudan and Firmenich, owns a synthetic biology platform based on modifying the way microorganisms process sugars. The resulting materials serve as sustainable alternatives to petroleum-based products across a range of consumer goods and industry segments.

In 2012, IFF also adopted green-chemistry principles for both its flavors and fragrance businesses, the firm notes in its Moving Forward report. Green chemistry is “about approaching chemistry the way nature does,” IFF says. “It is a proven approach for reducing negative human and environmental impacts.”

A green-chemistry approach addresses the sustainable design of materials including the end-of-life impacts of substances.

“By following green chemistry principles, our scientists and engineers choose renewable raw materials, develop more energy-efficient pathways, design molecules that are more biodegradable and develop processes that minimize waste,” according to the company.

Twelve green-chemistry principles will serve as a framework for IFF’s R&D, product design and manufacturing processes, the firm says. The principles include preventing waste, reducing derivatives and designing for energy efficiency.

In the report, IFF explains how one green chemistry principle – atom economy – has already been implemented in the firm's processes.

Processes designed according to atom economy incorporate more of the raw materials into the final product, resulting in less waste. The effort has improved yields while reducing waste and cost, the firm says. Additionally, harsh raw materials were eliminated and replaced with non-hazardous ones.

“We practice this principle in real life as part of our fragrance ingredients process engineering and improvement program and in our collaborations with world-leading universities,” the firm notes.

The company has also applied green chemistry attributes to its fragrance products in 2012. During the year, IFF chemists applied two of the green chemistry principles – design for degradation and design benign chemicals – in an evaluation of its top 100 fragrance ingredients.

IFF's efforts toward sustainability and its green-chemistry approach could serve as examples for other fragrance marketers looking to move in a more natural direction, bolster their image or provide greater transparency in their business practices at a time when consumer concerns around ingredient safety are high and the fragrance industry in particular has come under suspicion due to its reliance on trade secrets.

During the World Perfumery Congress last year, fragrance executives shared frustrations over what they perceive as groundless anti-chemical sentiment among consumers, overzealous regulation that is shrinking perfumers’ ingredient palette and mounting pressure for fragrance recipe disclosure (Also see "WPC Report: Fragrance Industry Reps Lament Shrinking Ingredient Palette" - HBW Insight, 25 Jun, 2012.).

The International Fragrance Association and its scientific arm – the Research Institute for Fragrance Materials – have been working to educate the public on the importance of trade secrets in the fragrance industry and to ensure that regulatory decisions related to fragrance materials are based on sound science.

The trade group recently submitted a report to the European Commission in which it argued that current controls among IFRA-compliant firms are adequate to ensure the safety of scents. The group also said that full disclosure of fragrance formulas would have far-ranging detrimental effects on industry (Also see "IFRA Report To EC Addresses Trade Secrets, Dangers Of Full Disclosure" - HBW Insight, 8 Apr, 2013.).