Givaudan SA to expand operations in India

Tuesday, 06 July 2004, 19:30 IST
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BANGALORE: Givaudan SA, the world's largest fragrance and flavour company, will expand its operations in India to cash in on growing demand for its products by multinational and domestic firms. The Swiss company's Indian subsidiary is working on innovative fragrances and flavours to offer Indian consumers world-class products through its intermediaries. Having gained wider acceptance among overseas and domestic customers with its unique blend of fragrances and flavours, Bangalore-based Givaudan India will make substantial investments in the next three years for increasing its market share in the subcontinent and to ramp up exports. "We are open to invest more in India in product expansion and research and development activities," Givaudan CEO Juerg Witmer said here Monday. "Though we outsource more from India for our global operations, including raw materials, IT services and audit work, our annual sales here are yet to match our purchases." With a cumulative investment of $10 million in Indian operations during the last 10 years, the subsidiary has been generating about $20 million annually from exports, including substantial buy-back purchases by the parent company for its global customers. As a supplier of perfumery and flavour compounds to global customers, Givaudan has been upgrading the quality of raw materials produced by local manufacturers for its bulk purchases. The company has its fragrance division based on the outskirts of Bangalore with an installed capacity of 1100 tonnes per annum, while it's flavour division in Mumbai is set to scale up production capacity from 600 tonnes. The $2.2-billion perfume major is targeting India and China as its key drivers in expanding its global presence and increasing market share to 20-25 percent from the present 16 percent. "We believe India and China will be the major consumers of fragrances and flavours, thanks to their potential to emerge as strong economies in the world with higher growth rates than in advanced countries," Witmer said.
Source: IANS
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