Takasago Upgrades Mint, Oral Care Capabilities in North, South America

Amid growing demand for mint flavors, Takasago Flavors has boosted its global investments in this area such as upgrading its its mint laboratories and applications facilities in North and South America in order to enhance its oral care capabilities.

"It is great to see this taking shape in the Americas with these expansions in Teterboro [N.J.] and Vinhedo [Brazil]. Mint is hot right now, with exciting things happening in the market. We want to be at the center of this with the right answers for our clients," said Mike Munroe, Takasago’s vice president, global mint and Sensates.

Takasago's Brazil-based facility in Vinhedo, situated just north of Sâo Paulo, now features new laboratory and applications areas that complement the site’s mint flavor compounding facility. 

Vilma Mendes, flavor division director at the Vinhedo facility, said, “Our new mint facilities span our business processes from application laboratories and a sensory evaluation suite to a dedicated production facility—all conveniently located at one site. Working from this integrated Takasago location, creative and technically accomplished specialists, trained in mint flavors and applications are currently developing new mint flavors.”

To that end, Takasago said their work includes maximizing technologies such as Intensates flavors which provide cooling and warming sensations; Transatak malodor suppression flavors for fresher breath; Mintact synthetic mint flavors for stability and reliability; and Sensingle flavors for enhanced oral salivation. The newly expanded South American site is exclusively focused on oral care, especially in applications support for mouthwash initiatives. 

Meanwhile, a mint liquid production suite has been installed in a redeveloped area of the existing plant in Teterboro, N.J. in order to increase Takasago's liquid production capability in mint. The new mint blending area features a range of large scale mint blending tanks and equipment that will increase Takasago’s mint blending to a much more significant capacity, according to the company.

“We are very enthusiastic about the expansion of our mint liquids blending facilities which will lead to additional business opportunities," said Dana Drevitson, director of manufacturing at the Teterboro plant. "The increased and more efficient production is designed to provide world-class service to our customers.”

Brian Buck, senior vice president and general manager of Takasago International Corp. USA concluded, “We now have two tangible examples of Takasago’s commitment to developing our resources and capabilities for mint business in the Americas. We are already experiencing exciting business growth in mint flavors, reflecting Takasago’s technology-driven portfolio of products. The Teterboro expansion comes on the heels of a number of other improvements and upgrades we’ve been making to this site over the past four years.”

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