Firmenich SA was a Swiss company in the

fragrance An aroma compound, also known as an odorant, aroma, fragrance, flavoring or flavor, is a chemical compound that has a smell or odor. For an individual chemical or class of chemical compounds to impart a smell or fragrance, it must be sufficien ...

and flavor business. The company has created perfumes for over 125 years and produced a number of well-known flavors. Founded in 1895, it merged in May 2023 with the Dutch company DSM to form DSM-Firmenich. It employed 10,000 people across 46 manufacturing plants and six research and development centers.

History

The company was founded as Chuit & Naef in 1895 in

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

by chemist Philippe Chuit and businessman Martin Naef. Fred Firmenich joined in 1900 and later became the majority partner. The company was renamed Firmenich SA. Originally a fragrance company, Firmenich branched into the flavor business by creating a

raspberry The raspberry is the edible fruit of several plant species in the genus ''Rubus'' of the Rosaceae, rose family, most of which are in the subgenus ''Rubus#Modern classification, Idaeobatus''. The name also applies to these plants themselves. Ras ...

substitute in 1938, followed by creations of

citrus ''Citrus'' is a genus of flowering trees and shrubs in the family Rutaceae. Plants in the genus produce citrus fruits, including important crops such as oranges, mandarins, lemons, grapefruits, pomelos, and limes. ''Citrus'' is nativ ...

and

strawberry The garden strawberry (or simply strawberry; ''Fragaria × ananassa'') is a widely grown Hybrid (biology), hybrid plant cultivated worldwide for its fruit. The genus ''Fragaria'', the strawberries, is in the rose family, Rosaceae. The fruit ...

flavor. Other synthetic flavors followed for use in ultra-processed foods and preserved foods. In 1939, Firmenich Director of

Research and Development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in some countries as OKB, experiment and design, is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products. R&D constitutes the first stage ...

Lavoslav Ružička was awarded the

Nobel Prize in Chemistry The Nobel Prize in Chemistry () is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outst ...

"for his work on

polymethylenes Polyethylene or polythene (abbreviated PE; IUPAC name polyethene or poly(methylene)) is the most commonly produced plastic. It is a polymer, primarily used for packaging (plastic bags, plastic films, geomembranes and containers including bott ...

and higher

terpenes Terpenes () are a class of natural products consisting of compounds with the formula (C5H8)n for n ≥ 2. Terpenes are major biosynthetic building blocks. Comprising more than 30,000 compounds, these unsaturated hydrocarbons are produced predomi ...

," "including the first

chemical synthesis Chemical synthesis (chemical combination) is the artificial execution of chemical reactions to obtain one or several products. This occurs by physical and chemical manipulations usually involving one or more reactions. In modern laboratory uses ...

male sex hormones An androgen (from Greek ''andr-'', the stem of the word meaning ) is any natural or synthetic steroid hormone that regulates the development and maintenance of male characteristics in vertebrates by binding to androgen receptors. This includes ...

." On May 3, 2007, Firmenich announced that it would be acquiring the flavors' division of

Danisco Danisco A/S is a Denmark, Danish bio-based company with activities in food production, enzymes and other bioproducts as well as a wide variety of pharmaceutical grade excipients. It was formed in 1989 from the largest Danish industrial merger e ...

, Noville, in a deal worth €450 million. The deal was expected to move Firmenich ahead of

IFF In logic and related fields such as mathematics and philosophy, "if and only if" (often shortened as "iff") is paraphrased by the biconditional, a logical connective between statements. The biconditional is true in two cases, where either both ...

as the second-largest flavor company in the world. Firmenich's board named Gilbert Ghostine as CEO to succeed Patrick Firmenich, effective October 1, 2014. Patrick Firmenich was elected as chairman of Firmenich's Board of Directors as of October 12, 2016. On July 11, 2017, Firmenich completed the acquisition of Agilex Fragrances, expanding its ability to serve mid-sized customers in North America. On December 13, 2017, Firmenich announced the acquisition of Flavourome, an established privately held flavors company in South Africa, to expand its presence in Africa. On February 5, 2018, Firmenich confirmed the successful completion of the acquisition. In August 2018, Firmenich acquired Campus, an innovator in the application of "natural functional ingredients for protein application", which specializes "in clean label, meat, dairy, sauces and plant-based food". The research and production facilities of Campus are located in Italy and

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, Mexico. At some point, Firmenich acquired Natural Flavors, a manufacturer of flavors for the food and beverage industry. In September 2018, Firmenich announced its intent to acquire Senomyx. In June 2020, Firmenich acquired Les Dérivés Résiniques et Terpéniques ("DRT"), a world leader in plant-based chemistry, mainly from pine trees, and one of the leading suppliers globally of high quality, renewable ingredients. In October 2020, Firmenich announced that it had created a flavour by means of

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

. It teamed with

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who helped leverage "the entirety of Firmenich’s broad raw material database" to dissimulate "a lightly grilled beef taste" into its plant-based

meat alternatives A meat alternative or meat substitute (also called plant-based meat, mock meat, or alternative protein), is a food product made from vegetarian or vegan ingredients, eaten as a replacement for meat. Meat alternatives typically approximate qual ...

. Firmenich's "unique palette of ingredients" and "SmartProteins expertise in plant-based protein alternatives" were instrumental in the innovation process. In 2021, Firmenich was ranked second on FoodTalks' Global Top 50 Food Flavours and Fragrances Companies list, below

Givaudan Givaudan S.A. () is a Swiss multinational manufacturer of flavours, fragrances and active cosmetic ingredients. As of 2008, it was the world's largest company in the flavour and fragrance industry. Overview The company's scents and flavours ...

and above International Flavors and Fragrances. Major competitors include

, IFF and Symrise. In 2022, Firmenich announced its ambition to merge with Dutch conglomerate DSM; the merger became effective in May 2023 and the resulting company is named dsm-firmenich.

Lobby groups

Firmenich is a member of the

European Flavour Association European Flavour Association (EFFA) is a non-profit European-level trade association of the flavor industry, based in Brussels, Belgium. Founded in 1961, the organisation originally focused on both flavours and fragrances, but has focused solely ...

. In March 2021, Firmenich, Givaudan, IFF and Symrise launched the Fragrance Science and Advocacy Council.

References

{{Authority control Chemical companies of Switzerland Flavor companies Fragrance companies Manufacturing companies based in Geneva Food and drink companies of Switzerland Cosmetics companies of Switzerland Multinational companies headquartered in Switzerland 2023 mergers and acquisitions