Our customers are looking for a true partner who can bring innovation, consumer insight, market understanding and commercial expertise to develop sustainable fragrance and flavour creations. We are building on our strategic partnerships with our main customers and developing our presence with accounts or product categories where we are currently under-represented relative to our overall industry position and where we have an opportunity to expand. This will enable us to drive market share growth in mature as well as developing markets.

In Flavours, our strategy of customer intimacy and technology investment will continue to support growth in this pillar. TasteEssentials™ is our iconic flavour palette with the latest in technology, artistry and built-in consumer appeal. It focuses on the most significant flavours, inspiring new products and new opportunities for our customers, and will be a key driver of growth.

In Fragrances we are driving a proactive programme in feminine fine fragrances focusing on creating 'new classics'. We also have dedicated sales teams in North America to seek selected regional and local accounts, and remain focused on the air care and household categories.

Flavour example: TasteEssentials™ Chicken
Over the past two years we have reached greater depth and detail than ever in understanding what consumers mean when they say "it tastes just like chicken". We have been speaking to consumers in markets and shopping malls, cooked with them in their homes, eaten a variety of chicken dishes with them in high-end restaurants and in fast-food venues and even street stalls. The richness of language we have gathered is unprecedented and forms part of Sense It™, our global flavour language that is used throughout the company as a dialogue enabler between flavourists, application teams and sensory experts. Following months of work, details of our extended chicken language were captured in the form of a set of references of the 20 most relevant chicken descriptors. These are available for our creative teams around the world, enhancing the way we communicate and offering a clearer avenue for briefing and feedback on our submissions to increase our win rate and drive growth.

Fragrance example: Feminine fine fragrances
Innovation, creativity and close collaboration with customers has resulted in a 25% increase in the number of feminine fragrances created by our perfumers that now appear in the top 20 sellers lists (in the USA and France). In 2010, for the first time, Givaudan created both best male and best female award-winning fragrances at the Fragrance Foundation FiFi® and CEW Beauty awards with Lola by Marc Jacobs and One Million by Paco Rabanne. In total, 21 fragrances created by Givaudan won awards in different ceremonies across Europe, the USA and the Middle East.