Givaudan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Givaudan S.A.

Type of Company	Public SWX:GIVN
Founded	1895
Headquarters	Vernier, Switzerland
Key people	Gilles Andrier, CEO
Industry	Flavors and Fragrance
Products	Flavors and Fragrances
Revenue	CHF 2,778 million (2005)
Employees	5900
Website	www.givaudan.com

Givaudan is the world's largest producer of flavors and fragrances with sales of CHF 2,778 million in 2005. The company has operations all over the world. Today, the corporate headquarters of Givaudan are still located in Vernier, the company's flavor operations are headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio and the fragrance operations are headquartered in Paris, France. Gilles Andrier is the current CEO of Givaudan taking over in 2004 from Dr Jürg Witmer who is the current chairman of the board of directors. Major competitors include Firmenich, International Flavors and Fragrances, and Symrise.

The work Givaudan does for flavors and consumer fragrances is highly confidential. However, in the high prestige fine fragrance arena Givaudan has created fragrances for designers like Calvin Klein, Bijan, Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs, Ralph Lauren, Hugo Boss and celebrities like Michael Jordan. Givaudan runs a perfumery school in Paris, France and claims to have trained one in three of all creative perfumers in the industry.

[edit] History

Givaudan was founded as a perfumery company in 1895 in Zurich (Switzerland) by Leon and Xavier Givaudan. In 1898 Givaudan moved to Geneva (Switzerland) and constructed a factory in Vernier. In the 1960s, Givaudan entered the flavor business at a time when changing lifestyles was fueling an increased demand for easy-to-prepare meals.

In 1963, Givaudan was acquired by Roche and in 1964, Roche acquired one of Givaudan's competitors, Roure. Both companies flourished independently under Roche until 1991 when Givaudan and Roure were merged to form Givaudan-Roure. In 1997 Givaudan-Roure acquired another flavor company, Tastemaker, based in Cincinnati, Ohio (USA). The merger made Givaudan the largest flavor company in the world and the Tastemaker facility in Cincinnati became Givaudan's new headquarters for its flavor business. In 2000 Givaudan-Roure was spun-off by its parent company as Givaudan and listed on the Swiss Stock Exchange (Code GIVN.VX) where it is part of the SMI. In 2002 Givaudan acquired FIS the flavors division of Nestle.