IFF’s new Brazilian creative center targets trend-tracking
IFF’s Latin American flavors arm has emerged as a star of its global operations recently, showing a 21 percent increase in sales last year, with the company highlighting confectionery and beverage as two particularly strong areas of growth.
Global vice president of creation, application and innovation, flavors Jesse Wolff told FoodNavigator-USA.com: “A lot of our innovation is about staying a step ahead of the competition and gauging the pulse of the market…We are really trying to engage the customer. We do a lot of customer studies, so we wanted to have our chefs working directly with them, closer to the market.”
Apart from being located for better customer access, the laboratories are more advanced and there is potential for further expansion, the company said.
“Latin America has been a fantastic source of growth for us,” said Wolff.
“Advanced capabilities will help us better study and understand local consumer needs and preferences, and how these affect and are affected by global trends,” he added.
Chinese parallel
This latest innovation center follows a similar move by the company into China last month. Like the new Sao Paulo center, its Shanghai Creative Center includes a consumer insight center intended to develop understanding of local preferences for different tastes and scents.
Wolff said there was little difference between what the company is doing in China and Brazil.
He said: “It’s really the customer that is different…I really think the innovation we have made is a reflection of how we’re doing in those markets.”
IFF’s operations also grew in greater Asia last year, up 13 percent on 2007.
