Firmenich Announces the World’s First AI-Created Flavor

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND, 02 OCTOBER, 2020 - Firmenich, the world’s largest privately owned perfume and taste company, is proud to announce it has created the first ever flavor by Artificial Intelligence (AI), a delicious lightly grilled beef taste for use in plant-based meat alternatives. A key milestone in Firmenich’s digital transformation across its value chain, this breakthrough provides customers with uniquely tailored taste and nutrition solutions, with unprecedented speed-to-market. Leading the industry in augmented creativity, the Group is currently in advanced testing on several new AI-generated Flavors across its core tonalities.

“Firmenich is marrying the most fundamental elements of our DNA: ground-breaking innovation with the unique creativity of our Flavorists for enhanced formulation,” said Firmenich’s Chief Digital and Information Officer, Eric Saracchi. “AI enables us to explore new boundaries by empowering our Creators with a precise formula starting point, as well as additional suggestions for optimized ingredient combinations from which they can create bespoke tastes.”

Firmenich Flavors President Emmanuel Butstraen added: “The Covid-19 crisis has changed the food innovation landscape as well as the consumer marketplace. We must understand and respond to these rapidly-evolving needs with more creativity at an even faster pace. Whether through offering moments of comfort and delight or addressing the larger shift towards healthier food & beverages.” Butstraen continued, “The exciting addition of AI allows us to better leverage different raw materials and explore new creative leads. Taking into account specific product parameters such as 100% natural ingredients and regulatory requirements, the technology enhances our flavorists’ capability to create superior taste solutions and accelerate our product development.”

The world’s first AI flavor was created in collaboration with Microsoft®, leveraging the entirety of Firmenich’s broad raw material database. The resulting grilled beef flavor capitalizes on Firmenich’s unique palette of ingredients and SmartProteins™ expertise in plant-based protein alternatives.

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About Firmenich

Firmenich is the world’s largest privately-owned perfume and taste company, founded in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1895 and has been family-owned for 125 years. Firmenich is a leading business-to-business company operating primarily in the fragrance and taste market, specialized in the research, creation, manufacture and sale of perfumes, flavors and ingredients. Renowned for its world-class research and creativity, as well as its leadership in sustainability, Firmenich offers its customers superior innovation in formulation, a broad and high-quality palette of ingredients, and proprietary technologies including biotechnology, encapsulation, olfactory science and taste modulation. Firmenich had an annual turnover of 3.9 billion Swiss Francs at end June 2020.