ADM 2024 Leaders & Newsmakers

In 2023, ADM focused on executing our business strategy to further expand our flavor capabilities, extending our commercial and technical excellence to support growth across food and beverage segments.
In 2023, ADM focused on executing our business strategy to further expand our flavor capabilities, extending our commercial and technical excellence to support growth across food and beverage segments.
courtesy of ADM

For this year's Leaders & Newsmakers issue, ADM has tapped three company representatives to share insights on their respective segments and discuss vital research that happens behind the scenes to create boundary-pushing flavor solutions. 

ADM

Chicago, Illinois

2023 Sales:  $3.48 billion (net income) / $93.94 billion (revenue reported)

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Expanding Global Flavor Capabilities

Calvin McEvoy, president, Global Flavors, ADM, and member of the board of governors at Flavor Extract Manufacturers Association (FEMA)Calvin McEvoy, president, Global Flavors, ADM, and member of the board of governors at Flavor Extract Manufacturers Association (FEMA)courtesy of ADM

Calvin McEvoy [CM]: The heart of food and beverage innovation is the sensory experience, which takes technical know-how and vast capabilities to achieve. ADM’s mission is rooted in unlocking the power of nature, which we leverage to create remarkable nutritional offerings that also support our broader company-wide sustainability initiatives, ultimately enriching the quality of life for consumers across the globe. A combination of our enduring commitment to technical advancement, novel ingredients often derived from natural sources and an ever-expanding library of flavor solutions has helped us make enormous strides in flavor and product innovation over the past decade.

As a premier human nutrition company and flavor powerhouse, we are dedicated to paving the way for the future of food, through continuous investment in science, technology and creation know-how, and anticipating emerging trend opportunities. We are building upon our robust capabilities with new extensions that provide bespoke solutions for our customers to have a competitive edge.

In 2023, we focused on executing our business strategy to further expand our flavor capabilities, extending our commercial and technical excellence to support growth across food and beverage segments. This includes bolstering geographic expansion in Africa, APAC and LATAM, as well as continued leadership in North America and Europe. In Africa, we are expanding our strategic facilities and labs to support the immense ongoing growth in this market and provide crucial proximity and agility.

Our deep expertise, premier technologies and collaborative approach to product creation, as well as production excellence through our state-of-the-art flavor production facility in Pingu, China, was key in also achieving tremendous momentum in the incredibly dynamic APAC market. Continually pushing the boundaries of flavor and taste through our creativity and proprietary solutions enables the extraordinary results coming from these regions and markets, helping our global flavors business flourish with new possibilities.

Positively impacting and widening our global reach as a flavor powerhouse are several milestone acquisitions, including Revela Foods, FDL and Totally Natural Solutions (TNS). Our acquisition of Revela Foods, a Wisconsin-based flavor developer and manufacturer with a strong focus on cheese and dairy flavor tonalities, is fueling a range of innovative possibilities to advance flavor capabilities in dairy, plant-based alternative dairy and savory product development. The acquisition of UK-based FDL reinforces our expansive global flavor and full solutions capacity, enabling us to extend further into foodservice and quick service restaurants (QSR), along with the broader food and beverage landscape. TNS, a UK-based hop oils and extracts manufacturer founded in the historic hop region of Kent, is strengthening our relationships with brewers not only in EMEA, but also opening up opportunities in other regions, particularly in markets like APAC and LATAM, which are interested in the use of hop oils and natural hop flavors.

Each of these acquisitions amplifies our flavor innovation capabilities, delivering more value to our customers and helping them reach their target consumers swiftly while staying ahead of fast-moving trends and demands. Across ADM, we are driven by a go-to-market mindset and, by coming together with these companies to serve our growing global customer set in consumer product goods (CPG), QSR and foodservice, we are building novel sensory experiences and products in the dairy, savory and beverage sectors and beyond.

Building Partnerships and Cutting-Edge Solutions Across Sectors

Martin Ongteco, vice president of Creation, Design and Development, Global Food Savory, ADMMartin Ongteco, vice president of Creation, Design and Development, Global Food Savory, ADMcourtesy of ADM

Martin Ongteco [MO]: As consumers’ tastes and behaviors shift, the market needs to develop and encompass more choice and optionality. In each food and beverage category, there is tremendous opportunity for flavor innovation, and our global team of flavorists and formulation experts leveraging our broad portfolio and technologies puts us at the forefront of what’s next.

ADM’s continued investment in the Academy of Future Flavorists is critical in developing future talent to design flavors from scratch, working collaboratively with product developers to ultimately result in game-changing food and beverage creations. Through specialized education and training over a multi-year program, aspiring flavorists are coached and mentored to unleash their creative and design capabilities, and they are taught to use ADM’s unique technologies and captive ingredients in developing flavors for food, beverages and dietary supplements. Supporting the next generation of flavorists ensures that ADM, and the overarching food industry, will produce phenomenal and delicious nutrition solutions today and bring new insights and innovation for decades to come.

Crucial to this ongoing progression is our collaborations, partnerships and acquisitions, which bring on more technologies and technical expertise. For example, Revela Foods’ unique solutions complement and integrate well with our global flavors portfolio and, through the exchange of creative tools, we are finding exciting cohesion points. Our sensory expertise and solutions are supporting Revela’s cheese sauces and seasonings, and Revela’s innovative enzyme technology adds new enzyme-modified flavors to our portfolio. This technology is particularly important in supporting clean-label product positioning, which consumers are expecting in many of their food and beverage purchases. It’s another valuable tool at our disposal to power an unmatched, customizable approach to flavor and food.

FDL is augmenting our food-service strategy and supporting our CPG efforts, bringing on new proprietary flavor formulations, including providing outstanding botanical extraction capabilities. FDL also operates three production facilities and two customer innovation centers in the UK. Uniting these formulations, systems and operations with our robust flavors library, expertise and established presence in Europe accelerates the innovation pipeline for our customers.

TNS has proprietary technology for concentration and fractionation of hops, which is a significant addition to our capabilities. TNS sources varietal hop oils from different regions and develops mouthfeel and bittering agents for beer, beer mix and non-alcoholic options. They now combine with our natural flavors, including citrus and fruit profiles and malt extracts and flavors, allowing us to extend the innovation possibilities within beer and beer mix, along with the 0.0% beer space and refreshing offerings like hop water. A substantial advantage of the access to hop oils is reducing the cost associated with hops throughout the brewing and formulation processes. With TNS, we have the final puzzle piece to provide an all-encompassing beer and hops flavor portfolio.

As we continue to bring Revela Foods, FDL and TNS into the fold, we are already seeing synergies throughout our flavor and product development projects, deepening our foundation in different flavor families. These added differentiated technologies and solutions are providing the tools that serve as a springboard for more creative outcomes and support our vertical integration efforts from ideation to the finished product.

Innovating Today for Tomorrow’s Demands

Marie Wright, president of Creation, Design and Development and Chief Global Flavorist, ADMMarie Wright, president of Creation, Design and Development and Chief Global Flavorist, ADM

Marie Wright [MW]: Our comprehensive innovation process utilizes both our unparalleled technical understanding of flavor and our global insights team. We continually monitor emerging trends and track where the food and beverage industry is moving. Our annual flavor and color trends report is an excellent example of our consumer data in action, in addition to how we capitalize on technologies and systems to identify important patterns in consumer behavior. For our 2024 Flavor and Color Trends report, our insights collection tapped into both the knowledge built up through our expert trend-spotters around the globe, along with artificial intelligence (AI), thus bringing together the efficiency of AI with a critical human element.

Within this report, we pulled out key themes shaping the motivations behind consumers unapologetically choosing flavors and colors that reflect their personalized desires. This includes an era of consumers proudly broadcasting their various lifestyle choices to the masses. Concurrently, there is an increased focus on tailored wellness, prompting functionality demands to rise to the top. Many consumers even expect all products to have wellness benefits as a baseline. However, they want functional beverages, snacks, plant-based options and more to taste exceptional, without compromise, including those with low- or no fat, sugar or salt, high protein or fiber or with the inclusion of biotics.

The recent hyper-focus on solutions that may stimulate the appetite-regulating hormone GLP-1 is putting additional pressure on the food and beverage industry to produce more offerings containing fiber, protein and wholesome ingredients without sacrificing a divine sensory experience. Consumers taking GLP-1 agonists may be limiting their intake of foods and beverages, but they still want them to taste fantastic. Our creation, design and development (CD&D) team works across categories with ADM’s extensive health and wellness portfolio, scientists and experts, enabling quick responses to these impactful trends with innovative products, accelerating our customers’ speed to market.

This is where our quality flavor solutions, novel technologies and unwavering commitment to superb sensory experiences shine, especially as there is also increased calls for sugar reduction in all facets of food and beverage. Through the introduction of our proprietary solutions and technologies, including our TasteSparka flavor modulation technology, we play a pivotal role in optimizing taste challenges from functional applications. This includes supporting low- and no-sugar offerings by building back mouthfeel and texture. We also leverage this technology to mask off-notes in high-protein and high-fiber applications. We use this technology in combination with our wide range of naturally derived flavors to bring intrigue, freshness in taste, authenticity, decadence and delight to foods that meet the needs of every consumer, from better-for-you beverages to plant-based dairy and meat, condiments, baked goods and confectionery.

 As we look to what may occur over the next several years, considering global events and influences, generational differences and an overall growing population, we are bringing on new partners, acquisitions, capabilities and technologies now to address future demands. For instance, forward-looking technologies will include a spotlight on AI and precision fermentation, supporting the novel creation of flavor ingredients. AI tools enable the integration of consumer needs with flavor and product development, working alongside flavor technologies to deliver a multisensory experience. Marrying new flavor experiences with new food technologies, including cell-cultivated meats and vegan-suitable whey and casein dairy products, are in the works and on the horizon. With our far-reaching capabilities, solutions portfolio and research and development centers, we are poised for action, proactively anticipating and responding to ever-evolving market and consumer demands by innovating the flavors of tomorrow.

Footnote

aTasteSpark is a trademark of ADM

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