Aromatech taps demand for organic flavours

The company, which was founded in the southern French flavour and fragrance capital of Grasse, will be at Biofach 2006. This global organic trade fair runs from the 16 to 19 February in Nuremberg, Germany.

The company plans to display more than 300 products for a number of applications, from alcoholic beverages to dairy ingredients. It claims that its range of ingredients offers a great variety of organoleptic notes and profiles in a number of different forms, including liquid, emulsion, powder, spray-dried and granulated.

The organic sector has firmly established itself as a key growth sector. Datamonitor estimates that in 2004, the total market for organic food in Europe was worth 20.7 billion, and that the market grew by 26 per cent from 2001.

As an inevitable consequence, the sector is becoming more rigidly regulated. The European Commission recently adopted a proposal for new regulations for organic production and labelling, which would make the use of the EU logo or specific wording obligatory for all organic food products sold in EU member states.

At the moment, the EU recognises that it is not yet possible to make products entirely from organic ingredients. As a result the manufacturer can use up to 5 per cent of certain non-organic food ingredients and still label the product as organic.

However, genetically-modified ingredients and artificial food additives are never allowed in organic foods.

For foods that contain 70 to 95 per cent organic ingredients, the word organic appears only in the ingredients list, and as a description on the front of label to show the percentage of ingredients that are organic.

Aromatech says that its organic flavours enable producers of organic goods to state the organic origin of flavours on the labelling of finished products. For example, this means that they can say 'natural lemon flavour from organic farming'​.

It also claims that its organic flavours are manufactured and marketed in strict conformity with quality standards. They are controlled and certified by ECOCERT, the approved body for European and Japanese (JAS) regulations and by BCS for US regulations (NOP).

The company is also a member of SYNABIO (Syndicat national des transformateurs de produits naturels et de culture biologique), the French Organic Trade Association, and it devotes more than 10 per cent of its annual turnover to research.