On Location: FIE and NIE

This year’s Food Ingredients Europe (FIE) was staged at the Excel Exhibition Centre in London’s Docklands. More than 20,000 food industry professionals attended the three-day event, visiting more than 1,000 exhibitors from 100 countries. Attendees were treated to two exhibitions as Natural Ingredients ran alongside as a co-located event. This event is becoming a global highlight as exhibitors and visitors were in attendance from all over the world.

Here are some highlights from the two shows:

Treatt plc was showcasing two new flavor ingredients of African origin: Tamarind Treattarome 9860 and Rooibos Treattarome 9762. Additional highlights included Eartharome products, derived from the organic named food, and the Eartholate range of organic essential oils. These ingredients enable flavorists to create a variety of flavor blends for 100% organic products.

Synergy reinforced its vanilla offering with the unveiling of a combined Synergy/Vanlab (acquired in January 2007) brand. The new approach brings together Vanlab’s traditional vanilla artistry with Synergy’s own industry-leading technologies.

Cargill announced that it has developed a natural cream flavor that replicates the authentic taste and quality of fresh cream while also providing customers with significant cost savings. The natural cream flavor stems from Cargill’s competencies in fermentation and enzymolysis. The company claims it can replace heavy cream without compromising the characteristic taste, mouthfeel or functionality of dairy ingredients.

Firmenich is now represented in the United Kingdom and Ireland by Antwerp-based distributor Kreglinger. The company’s stand launched this new partnership. On display was its new Sweetness Enhancer Flavor 505001T. Firmenich believes that often low-fat/fat-free diary products have astringent, bitter, metallic off-notes coming from added functional ingredients and/or artificial sweeteners. The Sweetness Enhancer Flavor is designed to mask these off-notes.

Onion and garlic extracts were on show from Kalsec, which says that its extracts capture the essence of the reactions that occur as a result of slicing, grinding, crushing and cooking.

Mastertaste’s booth focused on soy masking as a key to delivering pleasant tasting soy-based products. The company is offering a full range of EU-compliant soy masking flavors ranging from mild to strong masking power. The flavors were developed from research at its Turin facility.

One of the great pleasures at exhibitions is to meet up with friends and colleagues, many of whom you have not seen for some years. Pictured here is Roger Levicki (center), who is now retired but still maintains a keen interest in the flavor industry. (Roger and I worked together at Lautier Aromatiques in the late 1970s.) Levicki’s son, Tim (right), now works for Aromatech in Grasse, France, along with Benoît Martel (left). Aromatech is celebrating its 20th year and was promoting its new range of organic flavors that number in excess of 500.

Another of my ex-Lautier colleagues, Mike Tyrrell, is now with Lionel Hitchen Essential Oils. Its theme for this exhibition was “Serving the World with Natural Ingredients.” Featured flavors included natural pomelo, pomegranate, elderflower, lime, ginger extract and raspberry flavor.

Omega Ingredients was present in the Natural Ingredients exhibition, and Steve Pearce (pictured) was actively promoting the company’s range of vanilla extracts along with a new, unusual product—carrot oleoresin.

Japan Tobacco was demonstrating its MSG replacement, Vertex IG120, which is derived from bakers yeast. The company claims that it has the highest level of IMP, GMP, free amino acids and succinic acids compared to other yeast-derived enhancers on the market.

As Turkey will be joining the European Union in the near future it was good to see Aromsa and other Turkish companies present at this FIE. Aromsa was focusing on creative partnership at its stand.

Wild was promoting its natural sweetener system—Fruit Up—which the company claims gives an excellent sweetness profile with a low Glycemic Index. Focusing on another health issue, Wild’s salt flavor replacement system—SaltTrim—was also on display.

Lipid Nutrition B.V. had a eye-catching promotion (see picture) highlighting its PinnoThin. This product is based on pine nut oil derived from the nuts of the Korean pine (Pinus koraiensis) and is believed to be an appetite suppressant. With obesity high on the health concern list we can no doubt expect more products in this sector in the near future.

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