International Flavors & Fragrances Inc. (IFF) has officially opened its fully renovated and expanded flavors facility in Cairo, Egypt. The investment supports both the company’s regional focus on growth in the Middle East and Africa, as well as its focus on key categories, providing enhanced services to customers and strengthening its presence in this key market. 

“The Middle East/Africa region is a critical component of our Vision 2020 strategy,” says Andreas Fibig, IFF Chairman and CEO. “We believe the expansion and upgrade of our Cairo facility will support our efforts to grow in this exciting and dynamic region. The expanded labs will allow us to better serve our Egyptian customers and strengthen our market presence in Africa and the Middle East.”

IFF has a long-standing presence in Egypt. Its Cairo facility has been operational since 1979, with a sales office, creation and applications labs, and flavor production facilities. The expansion increases the company’s ability to provide application support across key categories for the region.

“Expanding IFFs footprint in Africa and the Middle East was always part of our Vision 2020 strategy as these regions are quite dynamic and interesting to us. We see our customers growing and needing more support from us, so expanding our creative and technical abilities to meet their needs was a natural next step,” Matthias Haeni, IFF Group President, Flavors,

“We also have a long-standing footprint in South Africa – a site we expanded two years earlier.  Additionally, we made a $60M investment in our Gebze, Turkey facility and established a site in Dubai.  We are committed to investing in the region as we see it as an engine of growth for IFF,” he adds.

Back in June this year, IFF launched Tastepoint – a new company designed to service the dynamic middle-market customer in North America. Fibig said: “The creation of Tastepoint by IFF marks the achievement of another milestone in our Vision 2020 strategy – to win wher we compete as we grow market share in North America. Tastepoint’s employees are truly passionate and committed to serving their customers in this exciting space, wher I expect them to continue to provide industry-leading service to our customers.”

Speaking to FoodIngredientFirst in a podcast says: “We have refreshed our sustainability strategy last year and our new strategy is really inspired by the design on the circular economy.”

“The sustainability vision is to leave a positive transformation and change, on three platforms which are: positive principles, regenerative products, and sensational people. The circular economy is a new way of looking at the relationships between the markets, customers and natural resources. It moves away from the traditional take, make and dispose theory. It should be transformed into one that is regenerative by design, the goal is to retain as much value as possible, through resources and create a system that allows an optimal use of refurbishment and manufacturing and recycling which has huge potential for global economic growth.” 

“75 percent of our business is outside of our home market in the US,” notes Fibig. “There are many areas of the world wher we can serve our customers. It’s really important we find the right balance so that we respond to these challenges and we do it in an agile way.”

According to Fibig, the are several shifts impacted by the flavors market. “We have seen over the last 18 months small acquisitions which are usually driven by capabilities, also strengthen our hard to reach customer bases and mid-sized customers. We challenge ourselves wherver we can,” he says. 

“So many new things are happening in terms of new product development and new technology. We still have a growing population on this planet – we are seeing good growth in that segment, which is even bigger than just flavors – its the whole taste segment.”

“I believe it’s a good field to operate in and a good business approach going forward,” he adds.