Interview: Firmenich on taste perception and its China strategy

Firmenich global vice president of taste Imad Farhat has said the company’s growth in China has enabled it to increase its focus on taste perception.

Speaking to FoodBev’s Jules Scully at the Food & Beverage Innovation Forum 2019 in Hangzhou, Farhat said that working in China has taught the company to not use a one-size-fits-all model across its markets.

“When I came first to China, a lot of the data that we had from other parts of the world suggested certain assumptions about taste,” he said. “For example, [it] suggested that this is how sweetness is perceived, this is how bitterness is perceived, sweetness drives preference, etcetera. A lot of these actually don’t work in China.”

He added: “China taught us to think much more broadly about taste perception and that’s been extremely beneficial for us.”

Last year, Firmenich boosted its operations in China by signing a strategic agreement with Layn Natural Ingredients, a Chinese producer of plant-based sweeteners, flavours and botanicals.

Under terms of the deal, Firmenich has become the exclusive distributor of Layn’s natural sweetener ingredients for all international markets outside of China and for its key customers in China.

Farhat said: “We did this relationship with them because they brought to us something that we needed, and that is full backward integration into some of the key ingredients for us.”