With ingredient pricing already impacting the F&F industry, the 2011 meeting of the International Federation of Essential Oils and Aroma Trades in Barcelona provided an opportunity to explore the challenges of the future. There will be 9 billion people on earth by 2050, noted Daemmon Reeve (Treatt USA) during a panel at the event’s general session. As a result, food costs will rise, food demands will grow and, perhaps, supplant citrus in some areas as other foodstuffs rise in demand. In Brazil, Reeve explained, sugar is already putting pressure on citrus; in Florida, blueberries are supplanting citrus; meanwhile, there doesn’t appear to be significant sources coming on line to pick up the slack of existing producers. Finally, he said, credit difficulties in recent years led to destocking in the F&F industry, swinging pricing power to origin.
Managing the ups and downs of supply and demand is difficult due to long start-up times for natural ingredients, said Colin Ringlieb (PepsiCo). He added that on this count the industry needs to do a better job.
Today, the F&F industry uses standardized oils, said citrus consultant Alfred Fogel. Perhaps, he continued, the industry could add alternate qualities of these materials to the palettes of formulators by introducing them in collaboration with flavorists and perfumers. The industry, he said, will have to take the initiative to pioneer any such new qualities.