Symrise AG is a major producer of flavours and

fragrance An aroma compound, also known as an odorant, aroma, fragrance or flavoring, 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 sufficiently ...

s with sales of €3.154 billion in 2018. Major competitors include

Döhler Döhler is a global producer, marketer and provider of technology-based natural ingredients and ingredient systems, i.e. food additives, for the food and beverage industries. Their product line ranges from flavours, colours, specialty & perf ...

Firmenich Firmenich SA is a private Swiss company in the fragrance and flavor business. It is the largest privately owned company in the field and ranks number two worldwide. Firmenich has created perfumes for over 125 years and produced a number of well-k ...

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

International Flavors and Fragrances International Flavors & Fragrances is an American corporation that produces flavors, fragrances, and cosmetic actives, which it markets globally. It is headquartered in New York City and has creative, sales, and manufacturing facilities in 44 di ...

, and Takasago International. Symrise 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 o ...

. In 2021, Symrise was ranked 4th by FoodTalks' Global Top 50 Food Flavours and Fragrances Companies list.

History

Symrise was founded in 2003 by the merger of Bayer subsidiary Haarmann & Reimer (H&R) and Dragoco, both based in Holzminden, Germany.

Haarman & Reimer

Haarman & Reimer (H&R) was founded in 1874 by chemists

Ferdinand Tiemann Johann Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand Tiemann (June 10, 1848 – November 14, 1899) was a German chemist and together with Karl Reimer discoverer of the Reimer-Tiemann reaction. Beginning in 1866, Tiemann studied pharmacy at the TU Braunschweig wh ...

and

Wilhelm Haarmann Gustav Ludwig Friedrich Wilhelm Haarmann (24 May 1847 – 6 March 1931) was a German chemist and together with Karl Reimer and Ferdinand Tiemann as scientific consultant founded the Haarmann & Reimer chemical plant for the production of vanillin. ...

after they succeeded in first synthesizing

vanillin Vanillin is an organic compound with the molecular formula . It is a phenolic aldehyde. Its functional groups include aldehyde, hydroxyl, and ether. It is the primary component of the extract of the vanilla bean. Synthetic vanillin is now u ...

from

coniferin Coniferin is a glucoside of coniferyl alcohol. This white crystalline solid is a metabolite in conifers, serving as an intermediate in cell wall lignification, as well as having other biological roles. It can also be found in the water root extrac ...

. Holzminden was the site where vanillin was first produced industrially. In 1917, H&R supported

Leopold Ružička Leopold Ružička (; born Lavoslav Stjepan Ružička; 13 September 1887 – 26 September 1976) was a Croatian-Swiss scientist and joint winner of the 1939 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his work on polymethylenes and higher terpenes" "including t ...

's unsuccessful three-year project to synthesize

irone Irones are a group of methylionone odorants used in perfumery, derived from iris oil,Council of Europe, August 2007 e.g. orris root. The most commercially important of these are: * (-)-''cis''-γ-irone, and * (-)-''cis''-α-irone Irones form t ...

, a fragrance of

violets Violet identifies various plant taxa, particularly species in the genus ''Viola'', within which the common violet is the best known member in Eurasia and the common blue violet and common purple violet are the best known members in North America ...

. In 1953, H&R was acquired by Bayer.

Dragoco

Dragoco was founded in 1919 by Carl-Wilhelm Gerberding and his cousin August Bellmer. Horst-Otto Gerberding, majority holder and Chairman of the Executive Board at Dragoco, placed all of his shares into the new Syrmise corporation and the merger was completed May 23, 2003.

History since 2003

In April 2005, Symrise acquired Flavours Direct, a UK-based manufacturer of compounded flavours and seasonings. In January 2006 Symrise acquired

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

based Kaden Biochemicals GmbH, a producer of specialty botanical extracts. In November 2006, Symrise announced plans to sell shares worth €650 million in an

IPO An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

. The firm also announced that its main shareholders, including EQT, would also sell shares worth an unspecified amount. The IPO would leave well above 50% of Symrise shares in

free-float In the context of stock markets, the public float or free float represents the portion of shares of a corporation that are in the hands of public investors as opposed to locked-in shares held by promoters, company officers, controlling-interest inv ...

Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank AG (), sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Sto ...

and UBS conducted the listing on December 11, 2006. Symrise was listed on the

Frankfurt Stock Exchange The Frankfurt Stock Exchange (german: link=no, Börse Frankfurt, former German name – FWB) is the world's 12th largest stock exchange by market capitalization. It has operations from 8:00 am to 10:00 pm ( German time). Organisation Loca ...

with the trading symbol SY1. With 81,030,358 shares issued at an issue price of €17.25 for a total volume of €1.4 billion, it was the largest German public offering of 2006. On 19 March 2007, Symrise was added to the German MDAX stock index. In March 2013, Symrise acquired US-owned fragrance manufacturer Belmay Fragrances for an undisclosed sum. On 12 April 2014, Symrise had announced the acquisition of Diana Group one of the leading manufacturers of natural flavours and the global number 1 for pet food solutions. The transaction was closed on July 29, 2014 and valued at around EUR 1.3 billion of equity and debt. In November 2020, Symrise announced its purchase agreement with Sensient Technologies Corporation, to acquire its fragrance and aroma business.

Key figures

World market share of the relevant fragrance and flavor market (2015) Source:Flavor & Fragrance Industry Leaders
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References

External links

* {{Authority control Flavor companies Fragrance companies Chemical companies of Germany Companies based in Saxony Food and drink companies of Germany Cosmetics companies of Germany Companies in the MDAX