A warm welcome to everyone on the live webcast as well. It is a shame you were not able to join us in this room. We have here over 150 guests in an amazing venue, the Paris Old Stock Exchange. Not only are we here all together, but there's an amazing booth showing what Firmenich does. All the taste, the smell, the ingredients. But I don't wanna make you too jealous, so I will pause there. Thank you very much for joining us this afternoon or maybe morning or evening, depending on where you are. Now, the presentation has been posted online. We will be, of course, projecting it as well here. I will point to slide two first, and that is the disclaimers.
A little bit tedious, but these are all the legal disclaimers. Please notice that we will take it as read and, if you haven't read it, then have a quick look at it. Now, the agenda. We have what is hopefully gonna be a very exciting, interesting, informative few hours together. The intention is to have two parts. Part one, discover Firmenich. Now, of course, as a privately owned company, it's a name that's very well-known in this industry, but not so well-known as a company, so a big chunk of today is going to be about discover Firmenich. Now, of course, Gilbert will be leading us through that with your team, and you will introduce them yourself. That is part one.
Now, we will pause for a Q&A at that point, for any questions around Firmenich and what they do, et cetera. There will be a break. We move to part two, which will be basically a bit of an update on the DSM businesses and what does the merger mean for the businesses as well. We will go into the vision of the merger, which we announced a couple of weeks ago, and some of the details, synergies, et cetera. At the end of that, a second moment for a bit of Q&A and interaction. Throughout all of the pauses, the booths will remain there, so you can go and test for yourself what it's all about. Now, as said, on May 31st, we announced effectively the combining of two iconic companies.
Two companies with a deep heritage, with a deep passion for science, with a deep passion for purpose, and I think you will be feeling that throughout the next few hours. Before we take you into this world, I definitely want to invite my two CEO colleagues to come and join me here on stage to give a chance to say hello to you as well. Dimitri and Gilbert, if you could come and join me, that would be great. Given that we've done obviously quite a journey to get here today, but also after two weeks, you know, post announcements, quick little question. Dimitri, what does this merger mean for you?
Yeah. Fantastic to see you all here. What does it mean to me? I was clearly instructed to remove my badge, but I reluctantly do so because it says something about DSM, Firmenich, two iconic companies coming together, which is almost like a dream come true. I really think this is a truly dream combination, and that's also how I strongly feel about it. Being 32 years with DSM, I started my career as sales manager, and the first customer I visited as a young boy, 23 years old, was Firmenich. It's almost like a circle being closed. I'm extremely proud to be here today together with Gilbert and with Geraldine to tell you a little bit about how we see this dream combination work.
We got very positive response from our employees and also a few of our customers we called just before we send out the information. I can tell you that after I informed them under strict confidentiality the evening before, most of the customers for one or two seconds, and then they used the word wow. How do I feel about it?
Wow.
Wow.
Very nice. Thank you, Dimitri. Gilbert, now you're gonna take us into part one in a second and discover the world of Firmenich. If you indulge us, what does this merger mean for you first?
It's a very good question, and obviously it's emotional.
Mm-hmm.
It's a combination of pride and excitement.
Mm-hmm.
You know, right, you know, I've been in the industry for eight years, and for the last eight years, you know, I know DSM. I've interacted with the leadership of DSM, and I've uncovered how many things we have in common.
Mm-hmm.
Values, passion for science, passion for customers. You know, doing the right thing, leading the industry in ESG. This is why, you know, as Dimitri has said and you just mentioned, it's a dream coming true.
Mm-hmm.
I feel extremely proud that, you know, we worked hand in hand, you know, to bring this outstanding news to the market and share it with everyone two weeks ago on the 31st of May. Excitement for the future.
Yeah.
You know, we are B2B companies.
Mm-hmm.
You know, when I shared it with customers, like you shared it with customers, overwhelmingly positive response.
Mm-hmm.
That says it all. Reacted very positively. Thank you. Very important also for all of us as long-term committed shareholders. At the same time, you know, very positive reaction from our people saying, "Wow." You know, like you said, you know, our people said, "You've surprised everyone. You surprised our competitors." At the same time, our people are very excited. It's extremely promising, and that's why I'm very excited for the future.
Gilbert, thank you for that. We're not gonna hold back any longer. The floor is yours to discover Firmenich.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone here in the room and the people who are joining us on the webcast from Europe. Good morning for the people joining us from North America, and good evening for the people who are joining us from Asia. You know, as I just mentioned, you know, today is a day of pride and excitement. Why? Because I want to welcome you to the world of Firmenich, introduce you to our, you know, private world, and at the same time, you know, share with you my passion, my excitement about the potential for dsm-firmenich. Now, I guess most of you, when you walk in here and, you know, for the people that are in the room, you know, you saw some of the brands that we fragrance and we flavor.
Can I see a show of hands for the people who they know and they use, and they were surprised to see them fragranced by Firmenich? 80%, 85% of the room. This is why Firmenich stands out. Firmenich touches, every day, 4 billion consumers around the world. We are the intel inside all of these brands' consumers every single day. Everything that has to do with smell and taste, this has been our métier for the last 127 years. What we are trying to bring you today in 10 slides and in the emotion and the passion of my colleagues, you know, that are managing the booth, to share with you their passion and is all about. You will understand, by the time you walk out, why Firmenich is called the hidden jewel of the fragrance and taste industry.
Now, in order for me to tailor a little bit my messages, can I see a show of hands for the people that are here in the room, for the people who are invested in fragrance and flavors? 50%, 55%. For the people who are passionate and committed for this industry, and this industry have given them good returns? Okay, even a higher proportion. Now, what I can tell you is that now you could tap into Firmenich because, you know, so far you have been speaking with us, Firmenich, they used to downplay us. Now you see why we stand out and why we have outperformed our key competitors over the last 10 years. To join me, I have my outstanding colleagues who will help me to convey, you know, our success.
I'll be followed by Sarah Reisinger, our Chief Research Officer. She will be followed by Ilaria Resta, the President of our Perfumery business, and then by Emmanuel Butstraen, who is the President of our Taste & Beyond business. My colleagues will join me with our CFO, Benoît, later for the Q&A. Why do we stand out? Because we have been a company that has been doing good behind this business for the long term for the last 127 years. We are a science company that has been passionate to innovate with our customers. Who are our customers? All the global companies that you know, all of the regional companies that you know, most of the local successful companies, and all startups. We managed to design a business model where we win with the winners.
There is not a single customer in the world that has a core list that doesn't have Firmenich as a core list supplier. You will hear from Ilaria. You know, we launch 52,000 new fragrances every year. We receive 50,000 Taste & Beyond briefs every year. This is the scale of our company. What we do with our customers, we have an intimate long-term relationship with them. We are the custodian of their brands. We look after their business. We are very passionate about their brands. We know their brands as much as they do know them. At the same time, we give them the opportunity to tap into 50 years of consumer insights. Our company have 50 years of consumer insights that we've tracked around 40 of the biggest markets in the world, and this we put at the disposal of our strategic customers.
Most importantly, we also co-create with them. We don't have the not invented here syndrome. You will hear this from Sarah later when she will be presenting. We co-create with our customers. We have built an ecosystem around science, around co-creation, one of the most powerful in the world. Now, secondly, what we do, we lead our industry with differentiated and proprietary ingredients. That is core to the differentiation that we bring in creativity and in solutions. Let me put it in perspective. In fragrance ingredients, we are 3x-4 x bigger than our nearest competitor, and our nearest competitor also in geography in Switzerland. It gives you an idea of how important this is. You'll ask me, why are ingredients important? What type of differentiation they bring?
We are the company that has invested in molecules discovery for fragrance and taste for the last 127 years. We create these proprietary molecules that we call captives. Why is this important for our customers? Today, in today's world in 2022, you could take a bottle of shampoo or a bottle of detergent, you put it in the GC machine, and the GC machine will tell you what is in there. You know, the big global companies that invest millions in advertising, they can be copied by a very small player anywhere in the world by just buying a GC machine. These GC machines are not expensive. How do we protect the brand integrity of our customers? By having the captives that nobody finds in the market.
When you put these shampoos and these detergents into this GC machine, you will see a gray area. You could see some formulas that you could buy from the trade, but you could see a gray area of 30%. You say, "What is in there? I don't know." This formula cannot be replicated. First, it's brand protection, and our customers like it. Who invests in creation and discovery of new molecules? The most in our industry is Firmenich. 3x-4x larger than our next competitor. Besides brand protection, what do we bring? Differentiation. What does differentiation means? You met Marie Salamagne, you met Haresh, you met some of our perfumers and some of our flavorists here. Why do they thrive in unleashing their creativity? What do they do?
Because they work with the broadest and the widest palette of ingredients. This is what we have at Firmenich, from synthetic, to naturals, to biotech, to biodegradable, to renewable ingredients. Let me give you an analogy. Think about a painter who wants to do a nice painting. What is the palette of ingredients are the colors for painters. As much color as you could give them, they can unleash their creativity. Some of these colors are not privy to perfumers and flavorists working for competitors. That's why when we recruit perfumers and flavorists from competitor companies, when they look at the palette, for them, it's Disneyland. They say, "Oh, my God. Now I can unleash my creativity, and I can bring this magic signature to the 52,000 perfumes that we launch every single year." This is why ingredients are so important.
I talked about differentiation, and I talked about brand protection. What is the third element that is very important, especially now in 2022? Supplier resilience. When Firmenich is the most integrated, vertically integrated company in ingredients in our industry, 3x-4x bigger than our next competitor, which means that we control our own destiny, and at the same time, you know, we have control over our sourcing, and at the same time favor in-house. We need to favor perfumery, we favor taste. And this has given extreme security to our customers over the last two and a half years, where every one of you knows, you know, supply chain has been a nightmare. What has Firmenich done?
Firmenich maintained an OTIF rate of above 90% for our customers throughout the last two and a half years, and at the same time, didn't force them to reformulate or dilute their formulas, although all our competitors have done so. It gives you an idea why with us being the most vertically integrated player and really invested in ingredients makes a significant difference and gives a significant competitive edge over our competitors. Now, all of this doesn't mean anything if it doesn't drive our performance. At the end of the day, numbers don't lie. When we talk about performance, this is a company, yes, we are family-owned, but we combine the best of both worlds. The rigor and accountability of publicly quoted companies and the passion and long-term investment of private companies. When we talk about performance, we are extremely passionate about performance.
Just to give you an idea about performance, we have outperformed our closest comparable competitor, Givaudan, in EBITDA margin in six out of the last eight years. Our model works and translate into outperformance in profitability. To build on this, and you will hear it from Ilaria and Emmanuel later, over the last eight consecutive quarters, we have outperformed Givaudan in top-line growth in Taste & Beyond. We have outperformed the industry in top-line growth over the last eight quarters. At the same time, we have outperformed our industry in top-line growth in Perfumery over the last four quarters. As you know, you know, we are a company that is defined by values. You know, we walk the talk, and we lead our industry in ESG.
Just to put this a little bit in numbers, you know, by the end of December, you know, we closed our calendar year last calendar year with EUR 4.5 billion in net revenue. Over the last calendar years, you know, we grew our business in a CAGR of 5%, mid-single digits solidly, with a margin of 20% EBITDA. As I mentioned, you know, higher margin than Givaudan for six out of the last eight years. We are a leader in our industry. We invest more in R&D as a percentage of net revenue than any of our competitors, and this gives us superior growth and superior margin throughout the cycle. We are also a global player. We operate in over 100 markets around the world with 47 manufacturing facilities.
You know that being able to have your manufacturing facilities everywhere in the world gave us agility, gave us nimbleness, and gave us the intimacy to be able to service our customers during the pandemic in a very strong way. You will see here our Sustainalytics rating. You know, our latest Sustainalytics rating was 7.5. We were ranked 37 around the world out of 15,000 companies. If you want to compare the Sustainalytics rating with Givaudan, for example, you know, their rating is 19. 7.5 versus 19, and this matters for our customers. Now, let me dive in a little bit into, you know, the businesses so you could understand, you know, how we have a competitive advantage and why, you know, we can win bigger, you know, in these key businesses.
When you start with Fragrance and Ingredients, you know, we are the leading supplier of four of the top five FMCG companies. At the same time, we are number one in fine fragrance, number two in personal body and home care, and obviously number one in ingredients. Ingredients are the backbone, not only of our company, but also of our industry. You met some of our perfumers and master flavorists. You know, these are the genius that brings creativity, that brings magic to the brands you consume. When you eat your yogurt, when you wash your hands with your soap, when you put your parfum or cologne, you know, this is what they do. You know, they bring this magic touch. You will hear from my colleagues later, you know, we have over 200 of them.
Just to put it in perspective, you have more astronauts in the world than you have perfumers, so it gives you an idea of how refined and sophisticated this material is. Now, Taste & Beyond. You know, Taste & Beyond is another part of the business where we are winning. We are winning, and as I just mentioned, you know, we are outperforming our key competitors. Here also, you know, we are making a significant difference because our business is differentiated. Just to give you an idea, 75% of our ingredients in Taste & Beyond are natural. What is the moment of truth? The zero moment of truth in perfumery, when you go to your supermarket, you want to buy your soap, your shampoo, your perfume, you open it, you smell it. You like the smell, you buy it. No impact yet on efficiency.
Now, this is the zero moment of truth in perfumery. What is the zero moment of truth today in food? You go into the supermarket. Before you taste it and you buy it, you turn the back label, and you look at the ingredients. The fact that 75% of our Ingredients business is naturals, you know, this is the brief that we receive from our customers. It's all about clean label. It's all about naturals. It's all about natural extracts. It is a business also where we have invested for the long term. What did we do differently than our key competitors? Yes, we operate in savory. We operate in sweet goods. We operate in beverages. You saw most of the beverage, sweet goods, and savory goods in the world, they are flavored by us and also by some of our competitors.
Where we lead, we have invested ahead for the categories of the future. You know, let me mention one of them. Sugar reduction. Suddenly, post-COVID, sugar became public enemy number one. You know, people realize your immune system is weak, you have diabetes, you are more vulnerable, and there is a witch hunt against sugar. We have, and you will hear from Sarah and from Emmanuel later, we have the most developed ecosystem in the world for sugar reduction, and that's the category where we lead our industry. Just to put it in perspective, last calendar year, we've removed 1.8 trillion calories from the food that you eat. We've removed 440,000 tons of sugar.
It gives you an idea of the leadership that Firmenich has in this space and at the same time, you know, the role we are playing in the diet transformation that is so critical. Another part that I will focus on is plant-based protein. You know, I was talking with some of you, and I saw, passionately tasting the generation we call it 7.0 of plant-based burgers. Our outstanding prepared by Nicolas Lemaire. People were surprised that this is not meat. We have been investing in plant-based protein over seven years. In plant-based in the world, global startups local that doesn't have Firmenich as a core supplier, because we have the capabilities, and we have invested ahead in building these capabilities. Emmanuel obviously will expand more on this one, and you will see, you know, how we lead in this space.
Let me make few comments on the key markets in the world. The number one market of Firmenich is the U.S. This is where we have over 2,000 employees. This is a market where we are the number one in perfumery in the world and ingredients, and this is a market where we are number three in Taste & Beyond, gaining market share year-over-year. I was in the U.S. reviewing the business with the team last week, and year-over-year, we gained market share and outperformed the market. Our second biggest market in the world is China. When you look at China also, you know, we are outperforming the industry. You know, we are gaining market share. In China, we are number two in our industry.
When you turn to India, that is our fourth biggest market in the world, and we know how critical are these countries. In India, we are number one in fragrance and taste, and this is another market, you know, where we're beating the competition and outperforming the industry. Now, this is old news because this is our first half results, but I want to point you to a few areas here. You know, first, you will see that we managed to grow our top line double digit, grow significantly our profitability in a very competitive market environment, which means that we are gaining market share, beating the competition. Most importantly, that we grew double digit in India and China, market for the future where we have scale, where we have manufacturing facilities, a top team that is winning every single day, gaining market share.
Even in North America, we grew high single digit market that was not growing, you know, that much. Most importantly, I want to point you to categories of the future. You know, we have grown our e-commerce business by 50%, our renewable fragrances by 45%, more than doubled our plant-based protein business, and our sugar reduction from a high base keep growing strongly by 25%. It gives you the idea about the potential that this company has in the future. Here I have not talked about combining our capabilities with DSM, where I know, you know, Patrick and Emmanuel and Philip will talk later about the synergies and the opportunities to drive top-line growth and accelerate top-line growth. You know, numbers don't lie, and that's why I like numbers.
If you look at the last almost 10 years, since 2013 - 2021, we grew our top line on an average by 5.4%, higher than Givaudan, higher than IFF. We do this because all our investments in science, all our special connection and intimacy and partnering with our customers and innovating ahead for them, you know, pays off. If you look on the bottom end of this slide, you will see over the last nine months, you know, we grew double the rate of Givaudan organically. Why did we do this? You know, because what we have done, our vertical integration, you know, enabled us to maintain an OTIF level of over 90%, and at the same time, our customers are shifting us more business because they felt that we were more reliable.
Now, let's look at the trajectory, you know, over the last 10 years. Here we could see that, you know, organic CAGR of mid-single digits, solid mid-single digit top-line growth, outperforming an industry that grows more or less in line with global GDP. At the same time, you know, the innovation that we're bringing to the market, you know, is taking a very positive response, you know, from the market. It gives you an idea that, you know, innovation pays out, investment pays out, and the strength and the diversification and the resilience of our business, you know, has weathered the challenges of times.
The fact that we have designed this business model to win with the winners, globals, regionals, locals, and startups, where we could identify, you know, the key players and invest with them for the future, you know, have managed to secure this sustainable performance, and I would rather say outperformance of the industry over the years. Now, the backbone of our company is science, and this is a key single competitive advantage for us. You saw that we invest more than any one of our competitors as a percentage of our net revenue behind the business. It's not only the investment. I like the competitive edge of it. Here I'll take you to the LexisNexis global research outcome. You know, they've run their research.
You know, they issued their publication a few months ago. What came out of it is that Firmenich was the only fragrance and taste company in the world that was selected part of the top 100 companies in the world. No one from our key competitors in taste and fragrance was part of the top 100. We were extremely proud, you know, to be with Google and Apple of this world, you know, in this top most innovator company list. What stood out here is the relevance of our investments because it was targeted and it was effective. Because, you know, the way they have assessed this is how effective your investment is, how this investment, how competitive it is, and because they do this assessment around your patents. Why is this so important for us?
You know, we are a proud recipient of a Nobel Prize back in 1939, so it sets the bar so high on us, on our creators, on our R&D scientists, because, you know, that's where they aspire. It's not only in 1939. You know, David MacMillan, you know, who is, was a co-recipient of a Nobel Prize last year, is also one of us that is intimately involved with Firmenich over the last 20 years. In this space, Sarah Reisinger will expand more on it, you know, we are industry leaders in fragrance encapsulation, in sugar reduction, in malodor control, in sensory receptor-based technology. Even sensory receptor-based technology was acknowledged by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for the leading work that we have done on malodor control. Now, what about digitalization?
The world in which we live has transformed. What we have done as a company, we have always led the industry in digitalization, but we have turbocharged our investment behind digitalization back in 2018. We've signed a partnership with the D-Lab at the EPFL, where we have, you know, young scientists, bright scientists, you know, coming to work with us. At the same time, you know, we're leveraging 50 years of consumer insights. This is what we have in our digitalization toolbox. We were the first in our industry to launch artificial intelligence perfume and artificial intelligence shampoo, artificial intelligence soap, and obviously artificial intelligence beef flavor that you might have sampled over lunch. Ilaria will expand on this one later. You know, we were the first in our industry to launch, you know, an e-commerce platform back in 2018.
We have EUR 250 million today on e-commerce. You know, we've launched this e-commerce platform, you know, in the key markets where it matters in China, in India, in the U.S., in Europe. Since 2018, you know, going strong. At the same time, we were the first in our industry to launch a digitally enabled platform to be able to service people who are interested, small customers and customers for perfumery. Ilaria will have a video on it later. It is called Scentmate, and I encourage you to go on scentmate.com and to see how powerful is this tool. We are launching this very quickly in China and in the U.S. because of the success that we had with Scentmate in Europe.
Ilaria will talk also about Path 2F arm later, and this gives our customers the ability to trace, you know, the origins of their ingredients and therefore give them lots of comfort around traceability, but at the same time around human rights. Now let me move to naturals. Why are naturals important? Well, you know. Go back to the back label. Go back to clean labels. Go back to naturals. Everyone wants to go to the source. This is where Firmenich is also an indisputable leader in our industry. We have in our palette 480 different botanical varieties. It gives you an idea about the opportunity for creativity in our natural palette. At the same time, we have a sourcing agreement with 250,000 farmers around the world. You know, we've created this platform called Naturals Together back in 2014.
It's a model that will give us exclusivity in sourcing. That is important because then you guarantee the sources of supply for you and at the same time you give comfort to your customers. Also creative are our naturals. You know, you will see later and maybe, I think, Sarah Reisinger will expand on it, you know, what we have done with proprietary tools around creativity in natural smell and taste. With Firgood, that is a revolutionary gentle extraction technology for natural ingredients that is proprietary to Firmenich. Also we have enabled our customers in this space to be more creative. You know, we've came with the EcoScent Compass and EcoIngredients Compass.
Both of them will be able to manage to measure the environmental impact of the fragrance and the ingredients that are in your formulas, which is the level of transparency that consumers expect in today's world. Also we have partnerships with Jungle on vertical farming, where we could bring different flowers and different tastes and flavors, naturals to our customers, where they can spin more claims and also more storytelling and more creativity. Let me now move to ESG. ESG, you know, we are known to be the leader of the industry in ESG, and we are extremely proud. You know, I mentioned our Sustainalytics rating. You know, when you look at CDP, you know, CDP, you know, there are only two companies in the world, L'Oréal and Firmenich, that received triple A four years in a row. When you look at EcoVadis, we have a rate...
We have a score of 88 over 100. You know, Givaudan will have 68. It gives you an idea of how committed we are to ESG. Why is it important? Why does it matter? It matters because it's the right thing to do. Also it matters for our customers because let's not forget that we are the Scope 3 emissions of our customers. When our customers have score lists, they will look at your ESG credentials. Why? Because we are their Scope 3 emissions. At the same time, because today in the world of war for talent, we could attract the best talent because the best talent want to work for responsible companies. With this, I will wrap it up.
I hope that I managed to convey to you our excitement, our commitment, and why Firmenich stand out in our industry, why Firmenich is the hidden jewel of our industry, and why Firmenich is extremely excited about the future potential partnership with DSM. We have connections with our customers, locals, regionals, and startups. This combination with DSM, you know, will propel the business to new heights. At the same time, you know what we have done on leadership in naturality, leadership in ESG, leadership in science, leadership in creation, puts us in a great position to win bigger in the future. I want to thank you for listening to me, and I will hand it over to someone that is smarter, brighter, and has a higher IQ than me, our Chief Research Officer of Firmenich, Sarah Reisinger. Sarah, over to you. Good.
Thank you, Gilbert, and good afternoon to everyone. When I joined Firmenich in 2018, I did it for the opportunity to leverage the high caliber science to positively impact the world. I can only imagine if you can see how excited I am about the potential of this new opportunity we've been talking about to have an even bigger impact on the world. Today I'm gonna be talking to you about Firmenich. A little background about me. I got my Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of California, Berkeley, and then I spent most of my career in biotechnology working in companies such as Ginkgo Bioworks and Amyris. I'm very excited today to have the opportunity to talk to you about our world-class innovation. At Firmenich, we view science as the engine of our differentiation.
Today I'm to introduce you to our R&D strategy and discovery platforms. The differentiation we bring to our customers is powered by six key R&D capabilities. You'll see them on the left-hand portion of this slide. With biotechnology, natural extraction, and green chemistry, we provide the tools to deliver unique, sustainable ingredients and products, some of the captives that Gilbert was speaking about. We use sensory sciences to decode our senses and emotions. We're endeavoring to truly understand the human experience of taste and smell. We're using material science to high-performance technologies, microbiome solutions. Our microbiology and skin biology knowledge to identify unique benefits for hygiene, skincare, and microbiome solutions. With analytical science, we have the best-in-class capabilities, which discovering the hidden treasures in nature and solving the toughest characterization challenges.
We're using data science and AI to change the way we do research, accelerating discovery and augmenting creation. These capabilities underpin our R&D strategy, a three-pillar strategy to meet the needs of the business today and differentiate in the market now and in the future. In the next few minutes, we're gonna dive deeper into each of these strategic pillars, providing examples of how Firmenich innovation is generating value to the business. The first pillar is differentiated creation. Differentiated creation is all about delivering performance. Performance by developing technologies, ingredients, and tools for our creators. We're gonna talk about four examples of innovation that highlight the breadth of the differentiated innovation we're delivering in this pillar. Models for creation. Gilbert spoke about moments of truth at the grocery store when you sniff the cap of the shampoo.
Actually there's many key moments of truth for a product, and not all of them happen in the store. It's about a time and a place when consumers make purchase decisions. For shampoo, that actually happens also, not just in the store, but also when you're in the shower and something called bloom. For fine fragrance, what's happening when you're walking like the silhouette of this woman, the trail of the fragrance behind you. What we did was we used computational fluid dynamics to predict the performance of ingredients at these key moments of truth, which provided tools to our creator to win more with customers. We're using AI and receptor biology. It's changing the way we're discovering new ingredients, both in terms of accelerating our discoveries and opening up new spaces that we would not have come up with without these tools.
We're developing technology to recreate meat-like texture for plant-based foods, as some of you may have seen in the panel back there. We're leveraging our receptor biology and fragrance creation to deliver solutions for malodor. Now I'm gonna go deeper into a few examples to help you understand a bit more about what we do. Firmenich has the industry-leading receptor biology platform for both taste and smell. Here in this example, we're using our technologies to deliver superior performance in malodor control.
When you walk into a room, and you smell something bad, hopefully not right now with all of our beautiful perfumes, but when you walk into a room and when you smell something bad, what that means is that malodor molecule is binding a receptor in your nose, activating that receptor, which is resulting in a perception of malodor. Now, with our technology, we're actually able to prevent that perception. In a project we did with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, our technology delivered a 90% reduction in the perception of latrine malodor. It also performed significantly better than a non-malodor control fragrance solution. Now, this is the differentiation that we're targeting with our innovation products, right? Game-changing. You don't smell the restroom. That's amazing. This receptor-based platform also has many applications for our business well beyond sanitation to deliver perceptible benefits to consumers.
Changing to a Taste & Beyond application to also highlight our differentiated creation for a tool, a toolbox for plant-based protein. Plant-based proteins need to deliver a superior eating experience for people to wanna have them repeatedly. There are two challenges that I'm gonna talk about today, both delivering the aroma, the smell at the right time, and recreating the meat juiciness with vegetable fat. Our Dynarome technology addresses these two major moments of truth. The first moment of truth is all about when you wanna smell like it's cooking. When you cook a beef burger, you start smelling that it's cooked during the cooking process on the grill or in your stovetop. When you take a plant-based burger out of your refrigerator or freezer, you don't want it to smell cooked before it's cooked.
You want it to smell cooked at the right time, and that is what our Dynarome TR technology does. It actually waits to release that aroma until the temperature of application of heat. The second technology, the second moment of truth is about eating, right? Even if it smells great, if it doesn't taste good, if it's not the right experience, you're not gonna buy it again. This is again where our technology, the Dynarome SR, comes into play because it's simulating the juiciness of beef fat. Vegetable fat is great and all, however, its melting temperature is very narrow. Using our Dynarome technology, we more closely mimic that melting behavior. Together, the Dynarome SR and TR technology allows you to create an authentic consumer experience in a plant-based burger.
All right, that was all about differentiated creation, that first pillar. The second pillar, sustainability. As you heard from Gilbert, Firmenich has an impressive ESG record that I personally am very proud of, and we're driven to have a positive impact on the world. R&D is committed to deliver solutions needed for the planet and frankly, all of our shared futures. Three examples of research we're doing in this pillar include discovering new ingredients using sustainable processes, leveraging cutting-edge natural extraction technologies such as Firgood that Gilbert spoke of, biotechnology, and green chemistry. We're also converting our existing palette, leveraging renewable and upcycled materials. The final example is all about delivering long-lasting performance in a sustainable way. Let's go deeper now into long-lasting performance and talk about laundry, which is a major important consumer market. Consumers want long-lasting performance.
They want reassurance of clean and fresh at key moments of truth in the laundry cycle, wet, just dry, and over time. When you take your wet clothes out of the washer, you may not even realize it, but you smell it before you dry it. When you take your towels out of the closet or you change your sheets days or even weeks later, you want that reassurance that they're clean. However, the needs of consumers and our customers are evolving, and they still want that long-lasting performance but along with that, sustainability. At Firmenich, we've developed a complementary suite of technologies to deliver true performance for long-lasting the entire laundry cycle. First, pro-fragrances which the fragrance ingredient is released upon a trigger. Second, our differentiated biodegradable encapsulation technology that delivers that long-lasting performance.
We call it PopScent, and Ilaria will speak about it in our green ingredients talk. Our new eco-friendly encapsulation technology has been really praised by key customers for delivering both that performance and sustainability they wanted. A second example of Firmenich leading in sustainability is our technology. This is a critical solution for the future and one that I personally have end-to-end expertise in. Firmenich was a pioneer in biotechnology, investing over 20 years ago. In 2014, when Firmenich launched Clearwood, a fragrance reminiscent of patchouli, it reshaped the industry. It showed the power and potential of biotechnology to deliver sustainable new perfumery ingredients. Since then, we've launched several additional ingredients, including Ambrox Super and Z 11, which are two iconic ambery perfume notes, as well as most recently Dreamwood, a sandalwood-like note. All are 100% biorenewable.
The successful launch of these ingredients has further secured our leadership in biotechnology in the field. Firmenich will continue to leverage this platform to deliver sustainable and differentiated ingredients in the future. All right, our final pillar of our strategy is about wellness. In the current world context, in a stressful post-COVID environment, many of us, I know, I know myself included, is much more focused on not just the physical, but also the mental well-being. Here, I'm gonna highlight four impactful innovations as examples of our work in this pillar. First, we're leveraging Firmenich's proprietary taste receptor platform to develop new sweet enhancers and maskers for the diet transformation that Emmanuel will speak about. Identifying secondary benefits of our perfumery ingredients, such as antibacterial properties for use in hygiene.
We're also developing tangible links between flavor and emotional benefits, and then discovering ingredients with unique microbiome and cosmetic benefits. In a fitting example of our efforts to uncover secondary benefits of our perfumery ingredients, I wanna dive deeper into Dreamwood, the biotech ingredient I spoke about earlier. Of course, you can go look at the booth and smell it and see it in fragrances for those of you in the room today. Clinical studies show Dreamwood has a significantly positive effect on skin repair over 48 hours, and also it has a soothing effect on skin reducing redness. This is the first ingredient in the Firmenich palette that has demonstrated skin benefits and highlights the potential for multifunctionality.
We're continuing to build out our platform here with a focus on delivering proprietary active benefits for perfumery, and we're really excited about the potential with DSM's active benefits portfolio as well. I trust the examples I've provided to you today helps you visualize the tremendous power of our discovery platform to deliver breakthrough innovation for our business and our customers. We live in a rapidly evolving environment, and our broad capabilities and best-in-class technologies allow us to answer to our business' most critical needs. Rapid evolution means we also must remain agile and anticipate future market opportunities. To that end, we have built a robust and balanced pipeline to ensure not only delivery today, but also sustain differentiation in the future.
Thank you all so much for the opportunity to share about our strategy for delivering better value generating research and innovation at Firmenich. I'm pleased to introduce Ilaria Resta, who will be speaking to you about Firmenich's Perfumery and Ingredients business.
Thank you, Sarah.
Thank you.
Hello, everybody. I have been the president for this amazing division at Firmenich, the perfumery division, for over the last two years. Prior to that, I spent my 23-year career at Procter & Gamble, leading many business units like laundry detergents, home cleaners, beauty care, in the U.S. and in Europe. Of course, I was so excited to join Firmenich because I experienced firsthand from the client side the importance of fragrance in driving choice at the first moment of truth, driving delight. Actually, it's that investing in fragrance has a better return than investing in media. It's a good insight to bring home. I'm sure that this resonates with all of you. 67% of consumers head for the cashiers and pay for this product.
In the next 15 minutes, I will take you through the business model of our ingredients and perfumery business that we combine because it's behind this interconnection that value for our customer. We are the leader and the fastest growing player in the industry. Our sustainable competitive advantage is rooted in ingredients, innovation, and the talent of our perfumers. On ingredient, Gilbert used a very nice analogy. Ingredients are like paint colors for artists, and this is truly the case. We offer such a broad variety of ingredients to our perfumery in terms of breadth, choice, but also in terms of origins of the different countries, price as well as quality. This is a big asset in the hands of our consumers.
Out of these, we every year invent and sell 52,000 fragrances. Innovation has been at length discussed by Sarah, is our core competence, an area of superiority. We are born from science. We won a Nobel Prize, and we continue investing in research, on upstream research, as well as in the discovery of new molecules and new ingredients, but also new extraction methods that can change the profile or fragrance profiles of ingredient. To the science of innovation, we combined the art of our creations, and this is where our amazing perfumers come into play. You have on your table pictures of some of our 100 perfumers with some anecdote quotes. Today, you will have a chance to exchange with Marie and Naresh, and maybe they will reveal some of their secrets to you.
Now, we are 100% obsessed on consumer understanding, but also on the consumer foresight and the analysis of future mega trends. This is fundamental, especially in a moment of big change like the one that we're living today. There are new trends that are shaping the industry transformation. We all know them. The rise of that implies more requests on traceability ingredients, on transparency, even on certification, in some cases, a reformulation if the formula is not compliant. Then there is a big fragmentation of the market because of the indie brands, and small companies coming in together with the need of more personalization from our consumers. Last but not least, there is an encouraging trend for us in the industry, which is the rise of demand on active benefits.
Consumers love smell well, but what they want is benefits associated to their fragrance. This shift brings new demands from our client, but for us, it's a great opportunity because we are already well-positioned to answer these new trends. We have an end-to-end approach in our creation and development process. It's really all interconnected. One doesn't exist without the other. We start from our gold mine, which is our breadth of assets of data. As Gilbert mentioned that we record 50 consumer data. What is impressive is that this consumer data are a wide spectrum covering each consumer group, each product in each region. We can predict what is the likability of certain perfume in any region of the world without even developing a perfume. We use this data to produce without human touch in artificial intelligence fragrances.
At the same time, this is a wealth of asset, gold mine for our clients. None of them can see the world to the spectrum that we do, from food all the way to cleaning products. Ingredient technologies are in the hands of our perfumers to develop their creation. We look at the perfumers like I do when I join Firmenich, these amazing creators, and they are, but they're also scientists. They can memorize thousands of ingredients. They know exactly the profile of the ingredients in order to deliver a certain performance. The brief they receive from client sometime is all about, "I want people to enter into house and smell a hygiene that is natural." They translate this type of brief in superior creation, and to do so, they need also to master technology and ingredients.
In this moment of industry change, our position in ingredients is a critical competitive advantage. We are the leader of aroma ingredient. Not only we cover all the spectrum of ingredients from green to biotech to naturals, but also we are the most vertically integrated, which is in moments like this, an asset of survival and competitive advantage for us. We supply the worst moment of crisis, of raw material shortage, every single client, and none of them reformulated. This is a value that goes beyond the creation of fragrances. That's why we believe ingredients and perfumery combined are an asset, and we need to protect this connection. On naturals, I mean, Sarah covered on biotech in a great way.
On naturals, it's very important for you to know that we also nurtured an innovation and creation center in Grasse, where we produce 500 metric tons of naturals from 180 families of biomass. This is huge. So big that very often we host clients that come to co-design with us even new extraction methods, or they blend the different ingredients for their creations. They come and pick up flowers with us to use these flowers from their creation. It's really, really our strategic partnership with clients goes all the way the co-creation, not only of the olfactive preference, but also of the ingredient composition of their formula.
There is a fact that, Gilbert, about how many asteroids there are compared to perfumers, which tells you how rare are the talents of perfumers in this industry, and which tells you how much is important for a company like Firmenich to attract, train, and retain the best talents. We are lucky because we attract very strongly the talents in the industry because we have the best palette, but we also have the best tools of creation. Our creators are very, very well digitally advanced. They use creative workstations on iPads to simulate the variation of their formula without compounding any oil, which is quite magic how much is in the hand of these creators. Here they are, the best performers in the industry and recognized as the best one by the external institutions.
For example, The Fragrance Foundation in the U.S. awarded four perfumers in Firmenich out of seven worldwide with the Lifetime Achiever award. Our mission is to lead the transformation to positive perfumery, and I'm very passionate about that. I call this strategy positive perfumery because I truly believe perfumes can have positive impact to people, to planet, and the broader community of stakeholders we serve. We are accelerating the transformation in key three areas. On innovation, where we focus on performance and active benefits, and Sarah shared with you the example of EcoScent Compass, the PopScent Eco, which is an important innovation that combines the performance of encapsulation with the sustainability profile. More and more, we will answer briefs that performance, but performance will go hand in hand.
This is a challenge innovation and creation standpoint, because it's very difficult good balance between the two. I'm very glad that on sustainability we already very high level of 90% of our ingredients to be biodegradable. Our ambitious target is 99% of what we're getting there. Digital transformation for us is an important strategic asset and is an area of big investment over the last few years, even before digital was a fancy word, for all of us. Not only we are investing in our tools, all the way end-to-end from consumer listening studies, recording the consumer preferences, we are also, continuing using digital in the, informed creation process with our perfumers and creative team all the way to sell it to customers and beyond. Because we keep testing fragrances even after we have launched in the market. Why?
Because we need to set the bar high and give no temptation to our clients to brief anybody else. We have an obligation to continue testing. That's why having a wealth of data is an important asset and a goldmine for the future. On digital, we are very excited because we partner with external institutions. Gilbert mentioned the partnership with the EPFL University in Lausanne, where we are advancing our research on artificial intelligence. At the same time, we are partnering in China, for example, with retailers such as Alibaba or Hermès, in order to be at the forefront of the discovery of the usage of fragrances beyond the traditional application. Remember, Dimitri, I guess, gave us an example earlier at lunch, there are places where you enter, you smell a scent, and you are induced to buy. There are universities using scents to induce concentration.
Fragrances well beyond the personal use for pleasure. They are becoming more and more an asset of well-being. We have our innovation strategies rooted in three innovation platforms, superior performance, clean design. On the superior performance, to complement all the things that Sarah shared, we are putting a lot of effort on what we call the pro-fragrances. These are molecules that deposit and release gradually at different stages of development of the product. I give you an example. A laundry detergent, when you open the drum and the clothes is wet, the performance profile of the fragrance design is different when you iron or you fold the clothes or you wear the clothes. This type of science comes from and again, data.
On active benefits, I couldn't be more happy to stand under the logo of these two companies because it would be a dream come true to have a portfolio of active benefits that complement the Firmenich one and address one of the biggest needs of consumers. They want more than hedonics. They want performance with real active benefit, especially in skincare, and this is where DSM's portfolio particularly strong. On clean design, not only we have a very ambitious target in terms of ESG, but by 2030, we are committed to deliver 99% of our ingredients biodegradable, 100% of our fragrance renewable, and to reduce 25% of our carbon footprint.
Together with these ambitious goals, we have developed a set of tools that you see on the right-hand side of the chart in order to facilitate all science in the journey of sustainability. One example is the EcoScent Compass, which is basically a digital diagnostic tool that assesses the DNA, green DNA of the fragrances we sell to our clients with a 360-degree approach. Not only we look at sustainability biodegradable score sourcing, but we go all the way, Path 2F arm, where are they sourced? Are the farms employing women at the same level of salary of men? They look at the whole chain also of responsible sourcing. This is a huge tool to maintain. Only ask and do it.
Our clients couldn't, but in the hands of clients, it translates into a tool to develop claims and to sell more, and address the needs of clients who want to know more, who want to know behind the label of a brand. In fact, we are submerged by requests on the EcoScent Compass. Another fantastic example for me is Firgood, which is the pioneering extraction method, solvent free, so quite sustainable, that allows to extract the scents of flowers. Flowers that otherwise you can never smell. Now, if we look at our innovation priority and agenda, not go through all of them because we discussed. Let me just point out the rising importance of emotional wellbeing. I think I went further. Sorry. I'll go to Scentmate. Won't repeat what I already said.
Going back to digital, there is one important, digitally native business model that we have launched a year ago, and I'm incredibly proud of the progress so far and better than any words.
Meet Scentmate by Firmenich. The new AI-enabled platform that completely reinvents the perfumery business model. With Scentmate, we support small and medium-sized customers, a fast-growing market we couldn't serve profitably before. How? By creating an approachable customer experience that fits today's business reality. From briefing to nose in less than 72 hours. A once lengthy process, taking up to two weeks, is now 5 x faster. With our intuitive onboarding flow, customers easily define product categories, markets, and dosages in just a few clicks. In an engaging olfactive discovery, we help them bring their fragrance vision to life by selecting emotions, ingredients, colors, and more. Our powerful AI almost instantly curates the right fragrances for their products. We have soon over 3,000 winning fragrances. Our human sales team is boosted with the latest digital technology. That's why we love to call Scentmate a hybrid.
The platform continuously tracks and analyzes customer patterns and behaviors, and automatically recommends action to take. It then systematically follows up until completion. The interconnected project management tool centralizes all cross-functional activities in one cockpit, so the whole team acts in sync. Advanced dynamic pricing then helps maximize the opportunity. With Scentmate, one sales manager can easily serve over 150 accounts, compared to a maximum of 15 before. The added digital layer helps us identify, acquire, and convert new leads into customers. Advanced search engine optimization and active digital marketing on social media are only two of our multi-channel features. Finally, we streamlined our ordering and fulfillment process to help our customers simplify their supply chain. Once an order is placed on Scentmate, the customer receives it in under seven days, compared to 21 days before.
With Scentmate by Firmenich, we pioneer the era of technology-enabled business models to win profitably with small and medium-sized customers. The new way to scent.
Is not a digital platform. This is a new business model powered by digital, and that's how we are approaching it, to look at serving new clients in completely different way, but also developing new products and services that these type of clients, the indie brands, the small companies, the start-up, do not have access to. They're basically outsourcing lots of work on marketing, consumer trends, naming certification to us, and this is becoming a new stream of revenues for us. I could speak forever, but already reach time, so I will accelerate. Very proud financial performance over the last four years. We kept on growing also in difficult moments for the industry. This is because, as Gilbert pointed, we are winning with the winners. We put our bets on the winning customers.
We dial up the relationship strategically with the winning customers. At the same time, we balance the portfolio by region to ensure we're in the fastest-growing region as well. Final chart with a very positive message that I believe the future is incredibly bright for perfumery and ingredients. Why? Because we are uniquely positioned to win ahead of the market. Because we excel exactly in the capabilities that are needed by consumers today and tomorrow, and we are already advanced on all of them. Sustainability, digital performance. In closing, I couldn't be happier to having seen this from DSM, because it's a fantastic complement to the portfolio of ingredients and actives that we have at Firmenich. We look forward to unleash even bigger potential of this partnership together.
With that, I will pass it on to Emmanuel Butstraen, President of Taste & Beyond.
Thank you, Ilaria. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm the last presentation before the Q&A. My target is really to keep the maximum attention for, I would say, the dream, because I think both Gilbert, Dimitri, Geraldine were speaking about dream is coming true, and it's really what it is. The combination of those two nice logos coming together, and I think it's really a pleasure and more than a pleasure, an honor to be in front of you today and present for the first time ever our Taste & Beyond businesses. I'm Emmanuel Butstraen. I joined Firmenich in 2018. After four years in many companies, I would say starting BASF for 17 years in animal nutrition, crop protection and biology, but also at Rogé Cavaillès in home personal care and aroma business.
I'm very, very proud to have joined Firmenich and to lead for the last three years the Taste & Beyond business, moving it from flavors to beyond. The beyond side, I would say the beyond development is really part of the transformation, and it's exactly what I would like to spend some time with you to see how we move into the beyond side. Thanks to also our purpose, diet transformation that you have seen at the booth, but also, thanks to our customers which accompany us in this transformation. Let me start with what we are. Who we are. The heart of Firmenich in the viewpoint of our customers. First, I think Gilbert mentioned his passion about performance before. I'm very happy to, I would say. Yes, I need to move the slide. Is that right? Yeah.
I'm happy to, I would say, to share with you, and he said it already two times, so I will repeat for the third time and maybe for a fourth time at the end, that we outperform our peers, six out of the last eight quarters, which gives a lot of pride to our team. As you know, we are an historical player, an historical leader of the industry. Understanding that from a pure flavor side in the Taste & Beyond world, we are. Last three years, as I said before, we extended capability technologies organically, M&A. On the beyond side with a great success. This merger between, Firmenich and DSM is really the best we can have to go beyond the beyond, means the far beyond.
For that standpoint, I'm, as I said, I'm thrilled to be in front of you today. Now if we would summarize how our customer would see us. First of all, we have the base, and the base is this customer intimacy, this long history of connecting with customers. We are part of their history. We are part of the brand. We are partnering with them to win on the marketplace. The brand, which at the end of the day brings trust. As you know, the trust is the catalyst of success. Being a partner of our customers, I think it's really. You can see, in fact, in the booth, in the entrance, everywhere, how many brands we are supporting every day. Gilbert spoke about 4 billion consumers taking our products every day.
It is really what we are. We are very proud about this base. Second foundation, Sarah presented our science foundation. A foundation on science is one thing, but making money, developing innovation, and growing innovation in the market is really great. It's high part of our growth as we are. The third piece is after the foundation and the base is the engine. The engine is our chefs, our flavorists, consumer insight, our labs, which are there to really make a difference. In fact, whenever a brief committed to us, more than committed to us every year. This machine is very important to be efficient and to work together with our customer to deliver success.
Fourth, as an industry leader in sustainability, I bet you each of the top management meetings that we used to have are speaking about sustainability, which is very high in agenda. It's an honor for me to have joined Firmenich as the leader of the industry in that way. It's a very good base for us to, at the end of the day, develop what we call our purpose transformation. This diet transformation, paving new ways, engaging people, engaging our stakeholders, our customers to bring together this diet transformational reality. What is our diet transformation? Diet transformation is first of all fully connected with our ESG targets, ESG commitment with people, nature and climate. We have three fundamental pillars.
Not very different from what, by the way, Ilaria was presenting. First of all, 75% of our products are natural, and we are there to accelerate the natural transformation of all the ingredients and to move them all over the world. We have, I would say, in this natural transformation, three important priorities. First of all, to have the best procurement standard. Second, to build those end-to-end value chain, traceable value chain with the farmers to be able to, I would say, bring this traceability to our customers. Last, it's about monitoring the impact, the social impact, the environmental impact of all the ingredients that we're using. This was the first pillar, transform into natural. Second pillar is about better nutrition. Better nutrition, as you know, the world is suffering from poor nutrition. Demand from healthier product.
Less sugar, less fats, less alcohol, better gut microbiome. A better gut microbiome, which will boost your immunity, which will enhance your well-being. This is what we are behind this pillar. In fact, by the way, the new merger, dsm-f irmenich, will really make us bring a new step in that direction moving forward. Last, the plant-based revolution. The new, the young, the millennials, and plenty of new consumers in the world moving into the flexitarian journey. This is a revolution. It is a revolution because we don't only at the moment try to copy some of the burgers, the nuggets that we have on the market through a plant-based product. There is a lot of non-invented type of product that will come moving forward.
This is why we are so passionate about this revolution, because it will make a real difference for the next decades to come. This purpose is fully, as I said, aligned with our ESG commitment. It is fully embarking our people, our science, our customer, but also many stakeholders in the world to really walk the talk in terms of sustainability moving forward. I wanted to share that with you because it's really a big pride of all the Firmenich team in that direction. Consumer obsessed. We are 100% consumer obsessed, and you will not be surprised because we are speaking about this 50 years experience on consumer insight. This is driving, I would say, where we invest our innovation, our understanding of all the local markets, which are so different in terms of consumer perception.
This machine is there to, I would say, guide us moving forward. You will not be surprised by these trends, like, for example, the clean label, the food minus, which are absolutely fundamental for all of you. Also new one coming, especially after COVID, like supply chain, which we are taking into account to adjust our strategy on a regular basis. Strategy, first of all, we deliver growth significantly over the last eight quarters, as I was mentioning before. We are driven by the diet transformation, and we have three fundamental priorities or pillars in this space. First of all, the fortification of our flavor foundation. Remember, number two position in the flavor sides, and we are there to do three things.
First of all, from global capabilities to local, strong local businesses, teams, labs, creation labs, to, I would say, answer to the local brands. You all know, especially in the food sector, that there is a deployment, a development, a strong development of a lot of local brands, and we are there to serve them. Second, innovation. There is a slide just after about it, so I will not speak too much, but being the best in class in innovation on our science foundation. Third, the expansion into natural, the transforming into natural that I was explaining just before. Those three will really our flavor powerhouse. I would say the second part of the strategy, which is moving beyond flavor priorities, is really the, I would say, the heart and the core of our strategy.
Moving beyond on this EUR 50 billion-EUR 60 billion market composed of many food ingredients, which I would say combined together with our flavors in a nice way to answer all the briefs, will really make a difference. In this EUR 50 billion-EUR 60 billion market, we need to be focused because we can be lost with so many opportunities. Focus on sugar reduction. We build an ecosystem which is the number one in the world, you know. Moving from flavors, modulation, extending into sweeteners, and so many different technologies, which at the end of the day make a real difference and is driving the growth of our division. Second, as I said before, Sarah , Gilbert mentioned that several times, the plant-based. The plant-based is also built system.
Now you have to understand that DSM will bring on top of our flavors, our maskers, our juiciness technologies, our textures technologies that we have developed, so many additional building blocks to really build something together which will answer to this revolution which is in place. Last, it's about nutrition. It was emerging for us. One more time, DSM, Firmenich together, this nutrition powerhouse from our taste and from basically all the technologies, the vitamins, all the different types of technology brought by, bought by DSM, put it together to really create a dreamy and really an avenue of growth moving forward. That's in a nutshell what is our strategy. For sure, we don't forget that we need M&A to expand our capabilities. We also and competitiveness to serve our customer, and digital is also a big part of our transformation.
Strategy was just what I've just mentioned before. I would like to give you two different slides, one about, I would say innovation, one about digital, which are really key in the transformation moving forward. The first one, as you said, foundation on science. Our engine is the innovation, and I'm very, I would say, proud to say that we have been very successful based on the research capabilities, focused on innovation program, seven innovation program tonalities, but more importantly also the deployment to our customers.
A deployment which I would say has been the time from development to deploy has been divided by 2, and we have been able to triple the delivery of innovation the last three years, thanks to the end-to-end connection that we have with Sarah and the team, with a very nice ecosystem in deploying innovation. Second, digital. I don't want to spend too much time on that, but it's really the heart. How we make our labs more efficient. How we can create from enhanced creation to informed creation, and I will spend more time in the future with you to explain what it means really, this revolution moving forward.
At the end of the day, which drives the efficiency, which answers to the briefs quicker, better, faster, and answers to the demand of innovation that our customers are asking for. Lastly, digital e-commerce is also a fundamental pillar with EUR 100 million of our revenue in that space. Performance is, as I said, a key of our DNA. We overachieve competition. We maintain also profitability between 20%-22% of EBITDA. The beyond is the growth machine, and the combination between flavors and beyond in a profitable model is the heart of this journey. I have, as I said, full confidence that the new model will continue to deliver this performance.
Lastly, to conclude, leading growth momentum in going beyond based on our number two position of flavor is really something which is a machine of growth moving forward. Don't forget this customer intimacy, the science, innovation, the digitalization and sustainability, which really make a difference into the marketplace. We had the, I would say, the ambition to go beyond with DSM is going far beyond our expectation, and from that standpoint, it's really a dream for all of us. I would like just to finish this presentation to do two things.
Thanks for the confidence of our customers over the last three or four years to move into that journey, trusting the data transformation, but also my last thanks will be for all the Taste & Beyond colleagues, which went into this transformation journey with a lot of energy and with a lot of change mindset to be able to move forward. Now I'm looking forward to integrate the with my new role all the two pieces together. Thank you very much for your attention before Gilbert is coming on stage for the Q&A. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Emmanuel. Fantastic. We have the flowers. Can I ask my colleagues to join me on stage? Ilaria, Sarah, Benoît. Fantastic. I'll take the questions. I hope that, you know, over the last, an hour and a half or two hours, you know, we managed to convey our passion, our excitement, and at the same time, you know, share with you how we managed to not miss a turn, transform Firmenich, embrace the leadership in digitalization, in naturality, in ESG, and at the same time, you know, position our company for the future with at the heart science and an obsession of servicing our customers. Who will go first? We will focus this Q&A on Firmenich, and we will have later a Q&A with Geraldine and Dimitri, to talk about dsm-firmenich. We'll spend 15 minutes, on this Q&A.
Can we give the mic to the gentleman here with the blue shirt and red tie on this table, please?
Right.
Yeah, here. Can you please mention your name and the company before asking your question.
Good afternoon. Gunther Zechmann from Bernstein Research. Thanks for the presentation. Can I just pick you up on the comment you made on the perfume and ingredients business? You spoke about pioneering pricing dynamics. Can you explain that more, please? How will you price your products compared to how you used to price them in the past?
Yeah. I don't think I've said pioneering pricing. I said what we are pioneering is creation. Obviously, pricing is pricing and, where you have the opportunity when you have your captives. Your captives is you've invested behind these captives for years and maybe decades before coming with these new molecules.
I'm looking at slide 42. It says, "Pioneering dynamic pricing.
Is it on Scent? Is it on Scentmate?
Is it on Scentmate?
Yes, it is.
Oh, yeah. That's Scentmate. Okay. This comes to you, Ilaria.
That's an excellent question. On Scentmate, we are using dynamic pricing to adjust to briefs that are done online. Basically we receive briefs on in terms of, I don't know, percentage of alcohol, percentage of fragrance they want, the type of application. Then we have an algorithm that is connected to the availability of raw materials. It's a constant adjustment of prices on the go. This level of adjustment is not possible outside of an ecosystem like digital because we normally have contractual agreements from year-on-year or every six months. With Scentmate, we have a chance to offer the price just in time given the context of that moment and the application they want.
I think what is interesting with Scentmate, it's an amazing model. First, because it's cash in advance. Second, it enables us to reach deeper into customers that usually we don't service because it's smaller customers. At the same time, we manage to service them, you know, with pace. Within 48 hours they get their samples, and within five days, five to seven days, you know, they get their final products. At the same time, you know, this is a business of higher margins because it's normally smaller quantities that we normally don't service as a company.
These are small entrepreneurs, in the brief we ask them, "How much are you willing to pay?" Depending on what they're ready to pay, we can adjust the quality of ingredients, the type of formulation. We leave it open-ended on the client side.
How much of your business would be via Scentmate with this pricing algorithm versus the traditional approach, please?
Well, we started Scentmate just 10 months ago and we serve only Europe at this stage. All the prices that Scentmate manages are done with this tool.
Thank you.
We're positively surprised with Scentmate. Obviously, Scentmate, we pioneered our industry in this space. Nobody has ever tried this model. We are extremely positively surprised with the reaction. Actually, we have a long queue of customers, you know, waiting on the checklist to be accepted to be considered as customers. Because of the learning that we have picked up over the last 10 months, we've decided to roll out Scentmate, you know, to the U.S. and to China, which is in the process today, mainly because of the exciting potential that we have found out of Scentmate. This is a business that has potential. It enables us to reach deeper and faster in a fragmented market because we are operating in a market that will be more and more fragmented as we go. As you know, there is lots of bespoke.
You know, people want craft, want bespoke, you know, want specific fragrances. Now, you know, everyone could go on this platform and purchase, you know, their scent. Next, can we get the mic here to the gentleman on the table, and then I'll come to you.
Thanks. Andrew Stott from UBS. Not dissimilar theme actually. Just listening to some of the pricing comments, but thinking more broadly about inflation, can you talk us through the levers that you have available to deal with inflation? I guess you learned a lot of lessons in 2011, 2012. Not all of you, but
Yeah.
As a company. Maybe just share that. And then the second question was a bit separate from that. Can you let us in on sort of migration of customers over the years? What does your profile look like today versus, say, five years ago? The mix between multinational and local and regional. Thank you.
Great. Look, this is a very good question. Let me start with the second one. If you look at our profile today, our business is 50-50 split between developing markets and developed markets, which is extremely encouraging. Our business. Just for example, if you look at the Taste & Beyond business, 2/3 of our business is more local and regional customers versus, you know, 1/3 being global. This dynamic has shifted considerably. That's why I was mentioning about this model that we have cracked at Firmenich, where we are extremely proud to service global, local, regionals and startups, but also winning with the winners, and we reallocate our resources accordingly. Now, to go to your first question about inflation. Inflation is a reality.
I think, you know, I was the first one where, you know, over a year ago, I started talking about inflation is creeping up. You know, people were like, "Oh, yeah, we don't really see it." You know, it's a reality. Inflation is not industry-related, sector-related, you know. That's the reality that we're dealing with. It's not only driven by raw material. You know, you have cost inflation, energy inflation, and it's hitting the pocket of everyone. Now, our industry have proved to be resilient with inflation. You know, we've learned it through the years. At the same time, you know, because we are a small component of our customers, of the cost of the products. Let me give you an example. If you look at fine fragrance, you know, we represent. Fragrance represents 5% of the cost.
If you go to consumer fragrance or the Taste & Beyond business, you know, we represent 1% of the cost. It is not significant for our customers. Now, obviously, like every other company in the world, you know, we are increasing our prices, you know, to offset the cost of raw material. Now, in our industry, as you know, covering our industry, there is a lag effect. Our philosophy on pricing has always been the following. Price up like a rocket and price down like a feather. Yes, there is a lag effect at the beginning, but there is a benefit at the end, and that will compensate. The question for the gentleman here on the back, please.
Can you hear me?
Yeah.
Chetan from JPMorgan. I had three questions. First one on-
Sorry, where are you? I can't see you. Can you stand up? Okay, perfect. Elegantly dressed with a nice tie. JP Morgan.
Just on vertical integration into raw materials, can you give us any quantification of how you compare versus your closest peers in terms of percentage of raw materials coming from your own captive sources or something to just help us understand that advantage? The second question was, in one of the slides you talked about, 480+ botanical extracts. I think there was a comment around exclusivity in sourcing. Can you maybe elaborate further on that topic? In the just botanical extract market, how do you see that from a supply resiliency in the future? Because it may depend on the availability of the crops, and that is very weather sensitive. Does that change the working capital requirement for the company going forward?
I could have paid you to ask me these questions. Thank you. Look, let me deal with the first one. On, you know, raw material, why we are more resilient than our key competitors, because as I tried to mention when I started my presentation, we are the most vertically integrated player in the industry, and we are three to four times bigger than our next competitor in ingredients. This gives us resilience. As a company, and actually I spent some time with my colleagues on this one over the last four, five years. We've learned from incidents that happens in our industry back in 2018. Back in 2018, there were fires in three of our key suppliers. You know, BASF is one of them, Privi is one of them, and DRT is one of them.
Our biggest learning, and that was our aha moment, is that this has disrupted significantly the supply chain. You know, most of the people in the industry had to go through reformulation. We've learned three things. First, we need to be more vertically integrated, and we've delivered against this one. You know, we've acquired DRT. You know, we have rethought our partnership with key manufacturers, and I'll share with you later what we have done differently on the botanical side. The second learning is to diversify our sourcing. One of the key principle is that we will not have a sole supplier in any country, and we will have dual supply or three suppliers of every ingredient in every continent. This diversification of sourcing also protected us.
The third one is that we have decided to increase our buffer stock on some of the specific raw material ingredients that are critical for the industry. We've taken an action of every one of these three areas. This is why we were more resilient than our key competitors during the last crisis. That's why, as you heard from Emmanuel and Ilaria, we didn't force any of our customers to reformulate. What we went through over the last two and a half years as an industry, you know, was really. Everyone else in the world, you know, with the disruption of raw material, et cetera. For our customers, for a supplier to not come to them and to say, "Reformulate," during this crisis with all the headaches they had.
Just to give you an idea, and you know this, most of our customers have problems to find carton box, caps, bottles, plastic caps, et cetera. They have enough hassle. When they feel relieved that at least they have a supplier who has thought about these things, anticipated them, and is protecting them with being the most vertically integrated. That's one initiative where we stand out from our key competitors. Now, let's go back to the botanicals. What we have done back in 2014, we've created something that is Naturals Together. You know, Naturals Together, you know, is a, is proprietary to Firmenich, and you could Google and you could find it on our website and have enough information on Naturals Together. What have we done differently with Naturals Together? Naturals Together connects us directly with 250,000 farmers in the world.
No one else in the industry has something similar. What we have done with these farmers and cooperatives all over the world, we have done a fit-for-purpose agreements, but all of them gives Firmenich a competitive advantage on sourcing. For example, we have joint ventures where we have majority, we have joint ventures where we have minority, and at the same time we have supply exclusivity agreements on some of these raw materials, which gives us a significant competitive advantage and at the same time, you know, guarantees the sourcing of these botanicals. That enables us to have this very rich natural palette and at the same time continue to service our customers.
Thank you.
Thank you. Can we give the mic to the gentleman here in the back that has been raising his hand for some time?
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good afternoon, and thank you for your hospitality. Sebastian Bray of Berenberg Bank. I just have three quick and quite quantitative questions. The first is category exposure in flavors. Can you talk about how much of your portfolio is sweet, savory, bakery-related to plant-based? I appreciate I probably won't get a total answer to that question, but any tidbits that you can give me are welcome. Second question, compensation of sales team. To what extent does the sales team compensation at your organization depend on the, let's say, individual performance of business group versus the group as a whole? Finally, last one, what level is staff turnover at at the group at the moment? Thank you.
Sebastian, thank you for your question. Your last question is about attrition, so what is the turnover in the company? Actually, we were having this review last week because we had our exec in the U.S., where we did a deep dive on the business and reviewed our business globally. Our attrition rate is around 10%-11% now globally, which is acceptable in the world of Great Resignation in which we live. It's harder for us in the manufacturing facilities than on the creation side of the business. Now, I will leave it to Emmanuel to comment on the remuneration of the team in Taste & Beyond. Let me handle your question about, you know, the business shifts that we have.
If you look, and you're right, we will not give you the full answer because, you know, we don't disclose this information. When you think about, you know, beverages, sweet goods, and savory, you should assume that savory is the smallest part of this business and sweet goods is the bigger, the biggest. Emmanuel, can you comment on the-
Yes.
remuneration of your commercial team?
Yes. I think the incentives of the sale is really winning briefs. It's about revenue, and it's about profitability. That's the two main indicator. A portion also of the team outside of sales is very much connected with the cash, also the cash conversion. That's what I want to say to you.
The way we structure our remuneration is definitely, you know, driven by financial components, and we have a 20% component that is all about leadership. Leadership, culture, behaviors, et cetera, et cetera. So 20% soft, 80%, you know, hard, driven by financial metrics. A combination of top line, bottom line, and cash. As we know, you know, we don't take volumes to the bank, so that's why you don't see volume incentive. You know, it's top line, here I'm saying revenue, EBITDA, which is cash, and at the same time, you know, free cash flow. What else? Yes. Can you have a mic to the lady here, please?
Nicola.
Hello. Do you hear me now? Thank you.
I can hear you very well.
It's Nicola Tang from BNP Paribas Exane. Thank you for the presentation. I wanted to ask a little bit about the concept of bringing the two businesses together. I think it's, you know, clear in terms of rationale. To quote you, I think you talked about this nutrition powerhouse that you're creating. If I look across the industry, I think through one form or another, we've seen various other players also kind of go down the route of broadening their portfolios. When I look at your slides, clearly you've been outperforming in terms of organic growth against some of your peers who have been moving in that direction.
I was wondering if you could talk about why you believe that this business model will drive or continue to drive superior organic growth, and sort of why now in terms of the timing of combining the two businesses?
Great question. Look, we will answer all the questions around the merger, you know, in the second Q&A. Let me tell you, answer specifically on Firmenich and also touch a little bit on DSM. The difference of dsm-firmenich merger with any other, you know, competitors coming together, here these are two iconic companies that are performing well. You know, when you look at the performance of DSM, this is a company, you know, gaining market share, beating the competition, et cetera, et cetera. The same applies to Firmenich. There is no urgency to do it because of cost pressure or because of underperformance.
These are two iconic companies coming together because strategically they thought that this is the right thing to do, and at the same time they are extremely excited, you know, to build, you know, a powerhouse in science and innovation and an industry leader in nutrition, beauty, and well-being. Now, why now for Firmenich? The Firmenich shareholders have always put the company and our customers first. The priority for the Firmenich shareholders is the perpetuity of the company. With the way our industry is transforming, you know, they see that now is the opportunity to partner, you know, with a company like DSM that shares our same values, our same passion for science and at the same time, our same passion for customers and sustainability to be able to create this powerhouse for the future.
We believe that, you know, we have now put together two amazing companies that will be transforming the industry for decades to come. I will take one more question because I realize that we have a 20 minutes break that we need to respect. If you can get me the mic to the lady here, and that will be the last question before the break. Just to, for you to keep in mind, when we will do the Q&A later with Geraldine and Dimitri, we are happy to take questions on dsm-firmenich and also on Firmenich. If you still have questions on your mind for Firmenich, we're very open to take them. Yes.
Can you hear me?
Now I can hear you.
Isha Sharma from...
I can see you smiling.
Isha Sharma from Stifel. I have two left, please. Could you tell us a bit about your recent acquisition of DRT?
Yeah.
As I understand it, 40% is industrial exposure. Is it possible to separate that business and potentially divest it in the future? The second one would be on competition. You've mentioned that you see increased competition from local and indie brands, and since they also target emerging markets which are higher growth, how do you plan to deal with that? Thank you.
Can you repeat your second question? I got the first one on DRT. The second one I couldn't hear it well.
How would you deal with competition from local and indie brands, which are also targeting the emerging high growth markets?
Yeah. Look, these are very good questions. The DRT one is very easy. You know, we were bold to go and acquire DRT two years ago. When we look at the performance of the business today, you know, we are very excited that we have acquired this business. You have to take into consideration that most of the briefs that we receive from our customers, what they want today, they want renewable ingredients. Renewable ingredients, you know, this is what we have bought into, DRT and at the same time, you know, proprietary biorefinery capability, you know, to be able to put all the ingredients that we have through the same funnel to turn them from synthetic into, you know, bio, renewable ingredients. We're very excited about this acquisition. Now, the outside F&F.
F&F do we call it's not all, you know, what you call industrial because you have agriculture, you have Action Pin, you have Gum, you have taste business. All of this is interrelated and, you know, we don't see today, you know, disposals, you know, to be done in DRT in this space. Your second question about competition with indie brands, we look at it as opportunity because at the end of the day, what's happening in the market today? You know, with all the disruption that, you know, the industry went through and all the companies in the world went through, you know, what does customer want? Even if they are startups or they are small brands, you know, what they are asking, they want reliable supply.
Reliable supply, which means reliable ingredients, reliable creativity, and reliable supply chain. That's why, you know, most of the customers that are even indie brands are coming to us. Some of them are coming to Scentmate. You know, most of the indie brands, if you look at who are our customers on Scentmate, they are indie brands. We see them also. We have models servicing them. You know, we bought a majority and control in a company in Turkey called MG. You know, what they supply is indie brands. All of these people come to us mainly because of our ingredients and superior supply chain, and at the same time, the supply security.
We're not intimidated at all, and that's why we're designing different business models in the life of business model of Scentmate that is, you know, based on this digital platform, to be able to service more, a more fragmented market that we see going forward because we see the market being even more fragmented between now and 2030. Okay, I want to thank you for your engagement. Thank you for your passion. Now you have a 20-minute bio break and benefit from the break, even to mingle and to go and visit the booth. Look forward to handing it over to Dimitri, who will take it over and take you through a deep dive into DSM after the break. Thank you.
Good to have you all back. It would also be nice if I have the mic. Yeah, good to be back. We knew it would be difficult to get you back into the room because being out there is far more interesting than listening to us on stage. Well, it's good to have at least 90% back in this room. Very nice to see you. I was just finishing my chocolate dairy product. Really, really good. Plant-based, pea, low in sugar, and it tastes really intense. I mean, this was when I met Gilbert, I think a year ago, on this specific topic. I was sold. It is really fantastic. I'm a chocolate junkie, to be frank, right? I don't know about you, but if I open a box of chocolate, I finish it the same day.
I'm also very happy to see that Lindt, the Swiss chocolate, is also having branded and helped by Firmenich. Another reason to really support the merger of dsm-firmenich. Nevertheless, I would like to take you through not only one beautiful company, Firmenich, and I think Gilbert and his team did a fantastic job to explain to you a little bit about DSM. Although many of you know us already quite a while. I will keep it brief. Just to get you a bit of context, maybe a bit of refresher before we go into the merger of dsm-f irmenich. Let me give you a bit of a refresher for DSM. Let me start with our transformation as a leader in health, nutrition, and biosciences. You will see that our heritage is backed up by scientific expertise.
Expertise in Royal DSM, Gist-Brocades, but also F. Hoffmann-La Roche, where we acquired the vitamins business. We are in two decades of transformation, slowly moving out of the materials businesses into health, nutrition, and biosciences. What we have announced on the 31st of May was yet again a monumental day for DSM. On the one hand, finding a new home for our last materials business. Accelerating our journey in the health and nutrition space with announcing the merger with Firmenich. We're able to do so because we're banking on our business model. Business model where we feel we're pretty unique in the world, with global products, with a broad portfolio of ingredients, unparalleled broad portfolio, using our application expertise to offer solutions to our customers. Banking on the next trend on digital, creating the new DSM for the future, building on precision and personalization.
While doing so, creating a fantastic innovation pipeline. We're not only having a DSM with good performance over the last five years and good performance today, but we're also building the DSM of the future. That's who we are, that's who we've always been. Therefore, creating a growth company, being active in highly attractive markets, and attractive markets around people and planet. This is our one-pager on the strategy. Any presentation Geraldine and myself or the executive committee is giving, this one-pager is coming back. On the one side, huge changes in the food system with huge innovation and opportunities for DSM, using our unique business model, but also taking commitment for the world with our food system commitment, while taking commitment for the ESG targets for DSM as a company. For ourselves as well as for the world.
Therefore, by anticipating on these trends in the world, using our business model, we have delivered on our strategic targets year- after- year- after- year. There's some good news for you. We intend to continue to do so. Well, we wanted to anchor that strategy into our organization, and therefore we have installed three business groups. One business group, which is all about more sustainable animal farming. That's the Animal Health and Nutrition business. A business group which is all looking at keeping the world's growing population healthy, and that's the Health, Nutrition, and Care unit. Remember, just in January, we brought three businesses together in the Food & Beverage unit, the hydrocolloids business, the Food & B everage part of the then existing DSM Nutritional Products, and the DSM Food Specialties, creating a business group of EUR 1.3 billion.
Banking on these themes, banking on what's happening in the macro environment. Well, let me introduce just for the first bit, Ivo Lansbergen. He is the President of the Animal Nutrition & Health business. Later on, we will invite on stage Philip Eykerman, who is the President of the Health, Nutrition & Care business. We'll close off with Patrick Niels, being the President of Food & Beverages. Ivo, may I have you on stage to present this fantastic business which is called Animal Nutrition & Health?
Thank you. Thank you, Dimitri. Very pleased to be here. Very pleased to be talking about animal nutrition and health. I would say a fantastic business within the DSM family and, of course, in the future of dsm-firmenich. Let me just briefly introduce you to what animal nutrition and health is all about. Before doing so, just a short recap on myself. My name is Ivo Lansbergen. I'm a bit of a veteran maybe within the DSM family. I was working for human nutrition and health and beforehand material science. 25 years with the company and still actually going now into the next frontier, joining the dsm-firmenich family. Very proud to be standing here.
Just a small recap, and probably most of you have been seeing this slide before, but also for the Firmenich people here around, quite an important slide. Animal Nutrition and Health is really supported by two mega trends. On the one hand, you got, of course, growing population, going from 7 billion- 9.8 billion by 2050. That's a 40% increase of today's population. They all need to be fed proteins, either plant-based or animal-based. That's a very important trend, which is driving growth in Animal Nutrition and Health. The second one, not least important I would say, is sustainability. Doing this in a sustainable way. I come back to that point later on in my slides because this is a growing trend, and it is only accelerating today.
Give you a little bit of flavor of the business, EUR 3.3 billion altogether. 65% is going through what we call, as already introduced by Dimitri, local solutions. We have global ingredients, and they're being sold internally through local solutions to our customers. We have a market share of roughly about 30%, and with that we are clearly a market leader in many of the areas. We are active in multi-species, as we call them, species being chicken on the one hand, which of course chicken, meat, but also eggs. We also have beef, but we also have dairy, fish, salmon, shrimp, and of course swine, which actually is going to pork. These are the animal protein sources we are looking into. There's one big very bubble over there.
You see the trend going from EUR 1.7 trillion, and I'd like to point it out, EUR 1.7 trillion value 2020 in animal protein, and we expect it to go up to EUR 3 trillion by 2050. It's quite a significant jump still. Of course, on the other hand, you see also in the bubble, and that starts with EUR 2 billion and goes up to EUR 500 billion. We do see both animal protein as well as plant-based protein to actually significantly grow also in the future, again, based on a growing population worldwide. Now to zoom in a little bit further onto what being mentioned by Dimitri earlier. Global Ingredients, there we have arguably one of the strongest portfolios in actually this value chain.
On the one hand, vitamins, carotenoids, minerals, but also we have ingredients which are steering the microbiome, and we call them eubiotics. They're modulating the microbiome for gut health purposes. On the other hand, we have ingredients which are helping to actually increase feed efficiency. Quite important, of course, in today's world. We also have ingredients which are, of course, de-risking the risk of mycotoxins, so mycotoxin risk management, and we have specialty vitamins as well. Give you a bit of a glance of the global ingredients we have in our portfolio today, and then complemented by, again, a very strong portfolio of premix plants around the world, local solutions, where we bring straight to the customer the combination of ingredients. Because typically a farmer and end consumer is not using one ingredient. They use a blend thereof, and that's exactly what we do.
Now since 12 months, we complemented this with what we call precision services. Precision services focused on health and nutrition on the one hand, called Verax, and you may have seen the news. On the other hand, sustainability, Sustell. Because we do believe that you will actually make an impact if you know where you stand. You can only actually improve what you measure, and that's exactly our view on Sustell, making local footprints of farms. Talking about sustainability, the absolutely key driver for growth in animal nutrition and health. These are the six platforms, and I'd like if there's anything as a takeaway from this presentation, this slide. We are focused on the one hand, antimicrobial resistance, i.e. the use of antibiotics, which is a very big topic, of course, in the animal space overall.
We are having ingredients which are reducing and replacing some of that. Second one is reducing, of course, the impact of our animal protein consumption on marine biology and biodiversity. A very important trend there as well, where we have our venture Veramaris. You will have known or you will have seen that in the past. Make an efficient use of natural resources, so improving feed efficiency. Again, trying to get more out of less. Reducing emissions, it's probably an obvious one, but this is not only about reducing emissions from a CO2 or greenhouse gas perspective, this is also about ammonia, local emissions, having an impact on biodiversity. I'm Dutch, and in Holland, and you may actually have the same here in France, but definitely in the Benelux, Germany and many places around the world, we face challenges with local biodiversity.
Phosphorus emissions, ammonia emissions, et cetera. Last but not least, improving lifetime performance of animals, but also improving food quality. Take an egg for example. We have ingredients which increase the calcium absorption by a laying hen, and therefore reduce the food loss and waste. To give you a bit of a flavor and a number actually here to it, what we think is possible, and I'm not gonna go through all the numbers here, but in ruminants alone, we do think with today's technologies available, based on Sustell as well, that we can lower overall, generally in the value chain, the greenhouse gases by about 37%, which are quite significant, of course. Poultry, 17%.
These are pretty impactful, kind of, interventions we can really just bring to the market and actually improve the sustainability of farming practices around the world. To give you a bit of a flavor of the kind of examples we are talking about, one I already mentioned, Veramaris. Bovaer, I hope that you all actually know about Bovaer. We are launching it today. We have an approval in Europe. We have an approval in Brazil. We have an approval in Chile, and it's actually rolling out and spreading around the world. It's reducing methane by about 30% and actually in beef applications, even up to 80%. Methane being one of the most powerful greenhouse gas pollutants you can imagine. It's about 30x more powerful than CO2. Last but not least, Sustell.
Sustell is all about measuring the local footprints on the farm. Really make sure that you understand where you're coming from, and then actually improve. That's the key here of Sustell. We are speaking here to financial institutions and farmers and of course, the value chain in general. What's actually in it for the dsm-firmenich deal? First of all, we're gonna hopefully create a little bit of a clean cow, and that was actually our code name for Bovaer. Therefore you see here a bit of an anecdote, but just joke aside, it's very clear that of course, if you have access to flavors, you can also then actually make sure that the palatability of feeds.
Because at the end of the day, an animal, and I don't wanna make anyone feel the same, but an animal is a little bit like humans as well. They will eat if it smells nice, if it tastes nice. That's also applicable. Of course, they have a slightly different taste buds than human beings, but they're already being used also in animal nutrition value chain as well. Palatability is gonna be one of the key elements. The other one I would like to also compliment also Ilaria here on is on Scentmate. Just accessing the small and medium-sized customers is something I do believe is gonna be value in for animal nutrition and health as well. Overall, I'm truly excited really now to see the future of dsm-firmenich coming really to life. This is my last slide.
Very proud of it because it says here, "We make it possible." What is it? It is all about making sure that animal protein is affordable, that people can afford animal proteins, eggs, dairy, milk, et cetera. On the one hand, that's affordability. Second, socioeconomic, making sure that animal farmers actually have a living. There's so many people around this world which earn a living based on animal farming. Third, not at the expense of this globe. Sustainability. This is what we mean with we make it possible. It says here, "If not us, who? If not now, when?" With that, I would like to hand over again to you, Dimitri. Thank you.
Normally, you need to help Ivo a little bit to slow down his passion, because otherwise we're here all day. It's really, truly a highly innovative field. I mean, people who don't exactly know what Animal Nutrition & Health is all about. I really invite you to touch base with Ivo and all of their people, because it's hugely innovative to generate health for planet. I think although I have to say that animals sometimes a bit easier to convince what is good for them than human beings, because human beings still have their will on their own. That's also why the combination is so beautiful, because it needs to not only be nutrition and healthy, but also it tastes well. That was later for Patrick.
Let me invite on stage Philip Eykerman to tell us a little bit that it's not only health for the planet, but we also care about health for people. He's leading that fantastic business group.
Thank you, Dimitri. I joined DSM 11 years ago as the Head of Strategy and M&A. You could also argue it took me a bit long to get to the point where we got now, but very happy that we finally got there. Since a few years, I've also taken responsibility for, in first instance, pharma and our food specialties business and now the Health, Nutrition & Care business. Health, Nutrition & Care in 10 minutes, that's not an easy task. It's about a EUR 2.6 billion business that we have organized in 10 segments, addressing a number of more niche-y specialty human nutrition and care segments, ranging from early life nutrition, so infant formulas, maternal health also. Then our dietary supplements, which we have B2B and B2C through eye health, pharma and medical nutrition.
Nutrition improvement, that's our business and the developments that we undertake for the malnourished in the world, so with the World Food Programme, with UNICEF, et cetera. Our personal care business, focusing on sun care, skin care, and hair care. Aroma ingredients, which in our case are derivatives or side products or of the vitamin A and E production, and through which we already have a good relationship with Firmenich. Last but not least, biomedical, which is the remainder of the materials portfolio, all about materials that go into the body. Very nice growing and also synergistic business with the rest of the portfolio.
Personal care and aroma will move out of the portfolio of HNC and move into Ilaria's business of fragrances and beauty, where there are a number of synergies driven by having the same customers, but also leveraging the application capability that there is in fragrances with Firmenich to basically move into more market-ready solutions. Very nice synergy area. Of course, also the biotech capability coming with our aroma ingredients. Now, you could say, what is the fit between all those businesses? That fit is basically coming from the science backbone as well as the supply chain backbone, but also the purpose of our business. All these segments share the same purpose, that is keeping the world's growing population healthy through nutrition and care.
Now, given that we are mostly a B2B business, of course, we do that with our customers, and we want to be the end-to-end innovation partner for our customers. That means that we want to sell them health claims, health benefits that they can use front of pack and that are compelling to their consumers, their customers. Second, we want to deliver our products and our solutions in a way that they fit into the matrix, the product matrix that they're working with. Last but not least, we do that with all the services that come with that, especially in our case, the regulatory services, but also the formulation and application services. With, of course, sustainability at the core. What are our must-win strategic priorities? There are six.
Given that we start from an already very strong position with, like Ivo, a 30%-40% market share in most of the things we do, we have to grow by growing the pie. Growing the pie for us means innovating, basically bringing new products to market, organically developed or expanding the portfolio by making partnerships with other players. Second, we have to grow along the value chain. We need to, like in Animal Nutrition & Health, increasingly sell our products as premixes or even as market-ready solutions. As you know, our high-health business has been growing very nicely, double-digit year- after- year since we acquired that, now 10 years ago. Last but not least, while this business group is roughly 1/3 in the Americas, 1/3 in Asia, and 1/3 in Europe, there is still tremendous growth potential for us in China.
Like Ivo, we don't call it here precision, but primarily personalized nutrition. We have set up a venture in that case or to develop that business called Hologram. Our goal is to come up with complete solutions, including a diagnostic, a recommendation app, as well as a completely developed dietary supplement solution. Where can the combination with Firmenich help us in that strategy? Basically, on all these elements. Starting with dietary supplements, the Firmenich people have spoken about the 250,000 farmers that they're connected with. That is a tremendous source for us for new natural ingredients that basically come as side products of, for instance, the lemon citrus-based production and flavors production. That's an opportunity for dietary supplements. Also the fact that dietary supplements don't come any longer as pills.
They come as gummies, they come as jellies, they come as shots, they come as sprinkles. That is where the Firmenich people with their taste experience can help us in a big way. Similarly, in our pharma segment, to mask the off tastes of most of our products. Last but not least, we have a very nice position in medical nutrition, but it's small. If we want to basically grow it, we have to expand in proteins, and we have to expand into complete market-ready solutions. This is something we cannot do on our own, but with the combination, we can absolutely do. Quite a number of synergy areas, maybe starting with the product portfolio.
I hope that some of you think when you think about innovation in my business, that you think of human milk oligosaccharides, that you think of algae-based omegas and that sort of things. What we're gonna very much focus on in addition to all of that, and we are already, is basically renovating the vitamins portfolio. We already have the ampli-D. That is basically a metabolic metabolite of the traditional vitamin D. The idea is also to come with an ampli-C, which will be a liposome to come with modified products, but also the encapsulation technologies of Firmenich in fragrances can help us a lot and come with new applications. Not only technologically, but also from a naturals perspective, there are synergies in this field. This is an example of a kids vitamin.
I don't know, I mean, how many of you have kids and how many of you still manage to give pills to your kids, but I don't think there are many of you or many amongst you. Kids don't want that anymore. They want jellies. They want gummies. They want stuff that has the right ingredients for the parents, but that also tastes well. Now we can make this sort of thing. This is not the most complicated form, but definitely Firmenich can help us here with the texture and the taste. This is already more complicated. In fact, this is made by a confectionery producer for us. It's part of the product range of Hologram. It's a menopause product. There's a diagnostic with it that measures the hormone level.
The results come on your app, on your phone, and then you're guided to a product, in this case, a pretty fancy gummy that has all the ingredients, but also, of course, needs to taste well, should not stick together, et cetera. Again, made by a confectionery producer, but something where also the Firmenich capabilities in terms of texture and taste could help us a lot. Two more examples. This is a medical nutrition product for cancer patients that take chemotherapy. The issue is not what these people need to eat. The issue is to have them comply with it and make it taste so good that they're willing to take these products every day, right? The challenge here is all about taste, different tastes, masking, et cetera.
This is not something we can do today, but it's a fantastic opportunity for the combination. I've got another example here of Crohn's disease with kids, where basically the only treatment is through nutrition, not through medication. Another fantastic example where we can work together on compliance. These were a few examples from the Health, Nutrition & Care business of where the combination will lead to revenue synergies. As you can see, there's quite a few. Emmanuel will talk more about that later on, but so very excited to get going on this. Thank you.
Okay. That was all about health for planet, health for people. If it's nutrition and health, you also need to make it nutritious, delicious, but also sustainable. In that heart of the business is Food & Beverage. Patrick, may I invite you on stage?
Thanks, Dimitri. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Patrick Niels. I've I run DSM Food & Beverage. I've been with the company for 30 years. I worked in the pharmaceutical side of the business, I worked in the material side of the business, and now I work in the nutrition side of the business. There's one thing I would like to share with you that at least comes from me, is I'm extremely excited where we as a company are today. This is the most exciting time for DSM. Before I go there, and before I share with you some of the opportunities I see in Food & Beverage, I would like the time to just take a step back and share with you where we are now today with DSM Food & Beverage.
We're on the journey where we wanna address the food system challenges. The food system challenges on a high level, when you look at it from a Food & Beverage perspective, are the following. First of all, more and more people are living on a planet. We need to make sure we can feed everybody. 8.5 billion people in 2030, 10 billion in 2050, and do it in such a way that food is also affordable for everybody. However, food has much more function than just eating and filling up. Food determines very much also your well-being. More and more customers are aware of the importance of nutrition, especially after COVID. Last but not least, food has to taste well. Taste is king.
Taste is, and we heard it earlier in the presentation for Firmenich, it's the zero moment of truth, the moment you bite in something, the moment you take your first sip. We need to create food that is actually delicious, nutritious, and sustainable. All three need to be addressed. We, as DSM, feel we're on a journey to address that. What did we say we do? We bring together today in DSM Food & Beverage, taste, texture, and health in sustainable solutions. Therefore, also our slogan, "Enjoy it all." It is possible to enjoy it all while eating things you like, eating things that are actually healthy, as well as not overly burdening the planet. I give you the example of a plant-based burger. Plant-based burger will come back in a little bit.
We create, first of all, the basic taste with our processed flavors, yeast extracts. With that, we create the taste. Now, on top of that, we also create texture. We have texturizers. We have our canola protein. We've recently acquired Vestkorn, the texturized vegetable protein producer in Norway. So we also create the texture. Last but not least, we also impact and we can deliver on the health aspects with our vitamin and other nutritional components we can put in our product offerings. Now, interesting example we have of a digital tool, Fortifull. That is a tool that determines based on the customer's regulatory environment, where in the world is he or she active.
If you combine that with the nutritional value of the product itself, it creates a route for our customers to deliver front-end claims based upon their alternative protein products. That is where we are today. As I said, we do provide taste, but it's more of the basic taste and not the refined taste solutions that Firmenich offers, but I come back to that later. Now, what kind of business is it? It's, as Dimitri said, EUR 1.3 billion. Dairy, savory, and beverage are the bigger segments. We have a very broad portfolio of products, ingredients that deliver functional impact on the customers. We have an overall market share, if you look at our attainable market, of about 10%. But if you really drill down, of course, on our targeted segments, we have significantly higher market shares.
We are active in attractive markets. This is the Food & Beverage market, a scattered market, which allows you to get your margins, which also supports an accelerated growth. Taste, Texture & Health. Just to substantiate a bit and to substantiate the fact that our ingredient portfolio is broad, this is an overview of everything we offer in Taste, Texture & Health. We also say we offer solutions in process and preservation, and that impacts very much the environmental footprint also of your product. This is us. This is DSM Food & Beverage. As I told you earlier, I'm very excited. Very excited because the opportunities that this merger of dsm-firmenich actually delivers for us. I'd like to share with you how I feel we can get those opportunities and also where I feel we can get them.
First of all, if you look at the how, both Firmenich and DSM have a very strong customer base. Together, we have much more breadth in our customer portfolio and also much more depth in the relationship with our customers. Secondly, concept selling. You've seen the portfolio of DSM. You know the strength of Firmenich in the whole flavor, taste, and also the texture platform. If you bring that together, concept selling becomes a much easier but also a much more trusted step by your customers, because you actually provide stuff that you make yourself that you can offer in an integrated solution to your customer. Last but not least, enhanced innovation. You heard today speaking about the briefs, specifically for the flavors. Now, the great thing about briefs is it starts the innovation process early on.
The flavor companies, Firmenich, is very early on in the innovation process most of the times. That's not always the case, but with the briefs that's very often the case. It allows us to expand and be earlier involved in innovation process. Second advantage is that there's a lot of co-creation going on, and co-creation you do very often with the brand owner. Again, a great moment to add additional value proposition of the overall Food & Beverage portfolio that we have to offer. Now, those three hows are supported by, I think two fundaments. On the right side, the people, both of DSM as well as Firmenich. I've met many of them, and I think we have extremely passionate group of people, knowledgeable group of people. But secondly, also a fantastic complementary toolbox. What do I mean by that?
For instance, if you talk about the plant-based dairy, there are off-notes in it. We try to solve it as DSM before we work together with Firmenich. We try to solve that with our enzyme portfolio, but there are many different ways to address off-notes, and of course, Firmenich is an expert in that. Putting those two technologies and capabilities together will bring tremendous advantage for our customers. Our extensive complementary toolbox is an extremely important foundation for both our companies to grow. Where are we gonna grow? First of all, in functional nutrition. Customers need more and more products that actually add to them. Emmanuel called it FoodPlus. Customers are looking for nutritional products included in the products. We have those nutritional products.
We have a lot of knowledge about what they do to you, but we do not have the strength and the capabilities to really drive that into a specific, very well-tasting end product. A lot of synergy there. Plant-based foods. I think I gave you a couple of examples where we see a lot of synergy by leveraging the capabilities of both companies. Our enzymes, our texturizers, our basic process flavors, our nutritional product portfolio combined with the taste and texture platform of Firmenich. Dairy. If you look at dairy, specifically if you look at the yogurt space, what you see is that DSM has a lot of strengths in creating the white mass, the base product. Now, the superior flavor component on that is something where Firmenich can add a lot of value.
If you put those together and you combine that with the nutritional offerings of DSM on vitamins, on probiotics, on lactase enzymes, you can imagine you can really drive a full integrated value proposition towards your customers. On savory, we see a lot of additional growth possible by our two companies because DSM has a strength in basic savory taste and processed flavors, combined with the very strong tonality capabilities of Firmenich. Now, also, as you know, we recently bought First Choice Ingredients, and there is also a lot of synergy in expanding the growth of First Choice Ingredients under the savory platform. Last but not least, there's an opportunity that will take a bit longer, and that's the pet food.
Today, our pet food offering is an offering on a nutritional portfolio, but the pet market, as you all know, is a very interesting market, growing very well, having a very interesting profitability, and we have the ingredients. A lot of the dynamics are similar to the human food business. We have the capabilities, and we have the portfolio jointly with Firmenich, which has some technologies in-house that they've not rolled out towards the pet food industry because of not having a dedicated route to market. When we combine that, there we see also a lot of growth. Now, two examples, just to give it a bit of meat on the bone. A flavored, fortified probiotic milk drink with a claim of supporting immunity. DSM can offer the dairy ingredients. We can offer the differentiating nutritional attributes.
On the other hand, the real premium taste Firmenich can add. Sugar reduction technologies, Firmenich can add. Last but not least, I talked about earlier, about off taste of proteins, specifically plant-based proteins. These can be very well masked with taste maskers. Now, we don't just sell a product, we sell more. Deep consumer insights of Firmenich is also something that will benefit our growth, our joint growth. DSM can, of course, offer the health claims, the ability to, for instance, know when or how we can help our customer on health claims to build front-of-pack claims, as well as regulatory setting of our nutritional products. Now application is synergistic, so it's great that we have a full coverage of application networks around the world.
Last but not least, the agile creation cycle with the briefs, as I mentioned earlier, can also help us in this segment. Now last example, I come back to our burger, and because I think it reflects very nicely of what we can do together. It's the base taste that DSM provides. The full palette of the finer taste directions to complement the basic taste is supplied by Firmenich. The mouthfeel and juiciness comes partly from the protein that we supply, comes partly from the texturizers. As you heard from Sarah this morning, also very nice tools to create the release of fat, both during the cooking and aromas as well as during the biting. Synergy there. The process efficiency with your enzymes and clean proteins from DSM and of course the nutritional toolbox.
Now all of that combined with state-of-the-art consumer insights, nutritional excellence of DSM, and as I mentioned earlier, a network of application centers. I'm not the only one that's excited. We got so many calls from customers. They don't see this as something that threatens them. They see this as something that can help them to accelerate their innovation cycle. We're extremely excited about the opportunities, and we look very much forward to growing and building a great Food & Beverage business as dsm-firmenich. Thank you.
Indeed. Nutritious, delicious, sustainable. Fantastic. Right. Before we go to dsm-firmenich, let me rehearse a little bit how you can help us. First of all, let's go back to the Perfumery Ingredients business. What you could do is just test the perfumes on your table, and then tomorrow buy your own brand with Firmenich ingredients, obviously, right? Choose and write down the name. One. Secondly, on the Taste & Beyond business, I think it's clearly indicated that if you buy a plant-based burger or this nice plant-based chocolate, right? Sugar, sugar or low in sugar, you will help us. Also there, thank you for your business. Animal Nutrition & Health. It would be great if you eat lots of salmon and then preferably sustainable salmon who is fed by algae-based fish oil. Not unimportant, algae-based fish oil.
Not that we fish the ocean empty, but that we have a sustainable solution for salmon. Fourthly, Health Nutrition and Care. I hope you take your dietary supplements every morning. Please do. It's good for your health, and it's good for DSM. Fifthly, on Food & Beverages, I think I would clearly advocate, apart from the plant-based burger, where you help both companies at the same time, it's good to take your probiotic-containing milk. It's good for your gut health, it's good for your immunity, and in today's world, where we're coming out of COVID, viruses are still there. Probiotic milk, hey, thank you very much. That is a bit of a rehearsal how you can help us. Let's go to the combination. I think I mean, maybe I'm slightly biased as the future co-CEO of the combination, but I think it's an unparalleled, unique combination.
Right? Even if I step back a little bit, I would say the same. Because the combination of these companies is like Gilbert said during one of the Q&As, "This is a choice out of strength." Both companies made a choice out of strength. Two iconic companies made a choice out of strength. The combination creates so much synergy that, like Patrick was saying, and the others, customers really see the value. Let me make it visual for you, because apart from lots of slides. Let's assume this is DSM. Yeah? This is Firmenich. Right? DSM is really good at health and nutrition. Sustainability at its core and everything they do is backed up by science. Firmenich is a master in taste and fragrances, with sustainability at its core, with a fantastic natural ingredient portfolio backed up by science.
Could you imagine a company where these two competencies will be brought together? That's what we've just decided, that's what we have announced on the 31st of May, this unique combination of capabilities. It's the story. I have 10 slides just to tell that story. I can stop here. It's nothing more. It's nothing less. Okay, let me run you through. We will focus on creation and innovation linked to the customer. We will copy part of that customer obsession, consumer obsession into that new company. We do that by organizing ourselves market related. We will have our eyes and ears open for the market. We do that in four leading businesses: Perfumery & Beauty, Food & Beverages / Taste & Beyond. Bear with us for a new name, but that will be the combination. Health, Nutrition & Care, and Animal Nutrition and Health.
We will listen to the market. We'll be geared towards the market. We do that with a few things which will empower these four businesses. First of all, it will be with unparalleled science. Both companies are based on an enormous broad science, undisputed. Check around in the world, everybody would say, "Wow, those are science powerhouses." We bring that together, and we will have an unparalleled science base. Also for biosciences, for naturals and the like. It will be really geared around co-creation and innovation. We're not only going to build a company for today, tomorrow, no, for the next five to 10 years with a fantastic creation and innovation pipeline. We're going to use the new dynamic of the world, digitally enabled. I think it's fantastic to see that in lots of businesses in Firmenich, but also DSM, we are already having pilots there.
In fact, we already have running business because of it. We're going to accelerate that because it creates a differentiating factor for the combination in the future. Gilbert mentioned it. Firmenich has outgrown competition also because their OTIF rates was far above what competitors could do. The same is valid for DSM. Could you imagine that if these two vertically integrated supply chains will be brought together, we can create a reliable service to our customers when they really need it? In today's world, that is a huge differentiator. Ilaria talked about the natural ingredients. That know-how is hugely synergetic for all other three businesses, and we're gonna elaborate on that. Then last, but certainly not least, I hope you sense the passion, the intensity, not only from the co-CEOs and from Gilbert, but from everybody who you've spoken to at the booths.
This is a fantastic bunch of people. They breathe the business. They radiate. They like this business. That's exactly why the combination of DSM-Firmenich was really a nice combination because they share the same passion. Very interesting to see. I think Patrick said it. We already had some joint developments. It was very easy because we speak the same cultural language. We love and radiate passion, it's backed up by the people component. How do we bring that together? I mean, this is the slide, but you can also remember the two bottles. They'll be merged into one. They'll be merged into one because we're gonna use health and texture on one side with the taste and application on the other side.
We're gonna use the biosciences platform, and we're gonna use the digital enabling, all backed up by the fact that we breathe and radiate the same passion and the same language, bringing the company forward. Four business groups backed up and pulled together and benefiting from the enormous science base which we create. Really, technology platforms globally applied for the four units, virtually integrated supply chain, and certainly best in class support functions. We have the critical mass of a company which is EUR 11 billion-EUR 12 billion in size to really be pure excellent, also on the global support and the service functions for these businesses. Let's go back a little bit. Let's check what's going out there in the world.
If we see what's happening, here you see on this slide a few words which coming out. Natural, sustainable, environmental, nutrition, clean label, reduced calorie, reduced sugar. If you then apply what we see in the outside world with the combination, this is exactly in the core of what dsm-firmenich is going to apply. Listening to the markets, mindful, linking it to the trends we see from a consumer perspective, and fully backed up for all four businesses in the science platforms, in the creation, innovation, and application capabilities, as well as all the people breathing and radiating that is purpose-led. Within Firmenich, they're always saying, "Business for good," naturally. Within DSM, we're saying, "Bright science, brighter living." A perfect fit. Science, a huge leverage. One of the key reasons why we think we can differentiate ourselves for the future.
We have the broader science functions if you look at the total portfolio. If you look at the number of employees, if you look at the patents and the IP, it is unparalleled. We're also going to use that to create functional solutions for our customers, to create formulations for our customers, to be there to protect their brands. That needs application know-how, it needs creation, it needs innovation. That's basically what we're going to bring together. That will all continue. The combination itself is investing about EUR 700 million+ on a yearly basis on R&D. There's a commitment from our side to continue that, because we're going to build a company not only for today, not only for tomorrow, but we wanna create a company for the future. Perfumers and flavorists will help us to differentiate ourselves.
We need differentiation, and we're gonna fulfill that journey, because I think in many of the presentations you've seen, that the uniqueness gives us that different value proposition. That uniqueness is also because we are locally co-creating an innovation in almost all key markets. You see here a bit the regional split. We are there where it matters. Where the market is growing, we are there. That also, in terms of the global footprint, gives us a huge advantage. Like I said before, a few examples of what we already do on the digital enabling business models. This is not only just e-commerce, this is thinking through how digital empowerment can help the differentiation of our business. How can we help our customers to differentiate?
It's a different mindset than just applying digital, and I hope you understood a little bit on what type of businesses we already have in these digital-empowered business models. If we do, it's very difficult to copy because we have the data, we have the know-how, and we have the access. Let's pause here for a minute. Maybe pre-COVID, everybody was assuming that a well-organized vertical integrated supply chain is an enabler. I can tell you, it's not an enabler today. It's a differentiator. We are actively working on it to make sure that we keep it a differentiator. I think the combination of these and Firmenich makes it almost unparalleled in the world. We will have 40 creation centers. We will have 78 application labs. We will have 70 premix sites around the world.
We'll have 88 manufacturing sites who could back up for each other. Who could basically make sure that whatever our customers are needed, we can back them up. We are actively working on it because it creates credibility, reliability, and therefore, a partner of choice. On our people, I told you a little bit the reaction of some of our customers we called. It's almost an exact copy of the employees' reaction, on the Firmenich side as well as on the DSM side. It was, in most of the cases, "Wow, I really want to be part of that." Very interesting small anecdote. I was at Kaiseraugst in Switzerland, together with Geraldine, and we were doing coffee and chat sessions. The first thing they were asking, "Dimi, when can we have the new business card?
Because I'm so proud that I can work for a company which is called dsm-firmenich." Not only because of the businesses it stands for, but also the values, and the purpose, and the integrity both companies bring together. Last but not least, we will, and we are a purpose-led company. The combination is going to be a purpose-led company. It's not because the leadership teams think that's a good idea. It's because all the people, all the 28,000 people working for this combination, dsm-firmenich, is requiring the leadership to create purpose, because there are not many people in the world today who just want to do their jobs. They wanna contribute to a better world.
I think certainly, leaders who have been leaders in the sustainable field, in the purpose field, who've stuck their neck out when purpose was almost not being accepted 10, 15 years ago. I think Firmenich did so, DSM did so, and the combination will even be stronger and more passionate about purpose than any other company in the world. With that, I think it's time for some governance stuff and financials. Geraldine, please.
Thanks, Dimitri. Okay, I hope everyone online is still with us, and we just have a few last pieces of the puzzle to put together before we will have a break and then the final Q&A. These pieces of the puzzle are partly answering some of the questions that we have heard, but of course, some of the structural aspects of what does the merger look like and how do we put it together. Let me run through those pretty promptly, because partly, you know, you're familiar with it, but it's worth a recap. First and foremost, of course, the leadership of a company does matter. The word here is experienced. If you look at the Board of Directors of the future dsm-firmenich, it will be made up of 12 very experienced board members.
The Chairman, Thomas Leysen, is the current chairman of DSM, and as vice chairman, it will be Patrick Firmenich, who knows everything there is to know about Firmenich. Now, if you go back to the 12, it's also good to know that there will be three representatives of Firmenich on the Board of Directors and nine independents. Here you can be guaranteed of not only top experience, but best practice already implemented in both companies to continue going forward. Now, when it comes to the executive team, now we announced on the 31st of May some of the names.
Firstly, I have to say Dimitri and I are extremely excited, and you've probably got that by now, so I'm not gonna repeat it, to be continuing in our co-CEO model with our, additional hats, so CFO for myself, COO for Dimitri, and continuing that going forward. Emmanuel, who will be joining me shortly, will be actually leading the integration of the two companies, bringing a lot of competence and knowledge of the space, which is very helpful. Now, also, you may not have noticed, maybe you were traveling as well. We announced this morning the composition of the rest of the executive team. In fact, you have now seen on stage today eight out of the 10.
In addition to the three faces that you're seeing on the slide, you of course had Ilaria, Philip, Patrick, Ivo, the business heads, Sarah, the science, and we will also have Mieke Van de Capelle, who will be the CHRO. She's currently CHRO of Firmenich, and Jane Sinclair, who is with us today as our Chief Legal Counsel, sorry. That's the composition. Now, probably worth pausing a second. What is that saying? Well, it's basically saying five and five. It is saying merger of equals. It is saying a lot of talent. I will stand here, even if I'm part of that five and five, with a resounding confidence in the quality of this top team that is being put together. That is the leadership. Now, if we go to how is deal gonna be put together?
Well, the term merger of equals here equally applies. Just a quick reminder, this is gonna be a tender offer. Basically, when we're saying the creation of a new company, it is the creation of a new company. DSM Firmenich NewCo will be there, and the intention is to tender, have a share of DSM in exchange for a share of the NewCo. Same with Firmenich, and of course, in that case, EUR 3.5 billion of cash as well. That is the structure. Sorry, the small print. This was the deck that was circulated, so if you can't read it from the back, don't worry. You have the information. That is the how we put the company together. Now, where is it going to be?
Well, this entity will be, in terms of legal domicile, Swiss domiciled. The seat of the principal is in Switzerland, and the headquarter is a dual headquarter, partly in Kaiseraugst in Switzerland, partly in Maastricht. Now, why that? Because we are here very determined to leverage the strengths of the two companies when we create this new company. It's also gonna be listed on the Dutch Stock Exchange, so in the Netherlands, on the Euronext, as also an important feature of finding this very healthy balance of preserving a lot of the DNA and quality and talent of both organization, of finding the right balance here. When it comes to the full businesses that Dimitri just referred to, we're gonna be leveraging the historical strengths of the businesses in terms of where they will be led from.
HNC and Animal Nutrition out of Kaiseraugst, Perfumery & Beauty out of Geneva. As you noticed, the area where there is gonna be the more construction, which will be Food & Beverage / Taste & Beyond, will be led out of Delft, in part also because the global biotech bioscience hub is there. It's also here bringing together the two organizations. That's when it comes to the structure. Now, also on this slide, we're referring to the ultimate ownership after the tender offer, and this will mean that DSM shareholders will end up with 65.5%, and the various Firmenich shareholders with the 34.5% as an overall structure. Now, the rest, I think, has been picked up over the last few days. Now, maybe on this slide, which is also quite busy, but I will.
I've already talked about the governance, so let me just focus on the timeline of the process. Now, this is a tender offer, which is a bit of a lengthy process, but what you can expect is that we will be publishing the prospectus and the tender documentation somewhere probably Q4-ish. There is a tender period. During that period, there needs to be an EGM of DSM. That EGM is there to make sure that we get approval of our shareholders, many of you in the room or on the line, for the different mechanics that go with the tender. Of course, there will be the tendering itself. Now from a time point of view, we will do everything that's in our hands to get this to go as fast as possible.
We are indicating here that it should close in the first half of 2023. Now of course, that's a rather broad definition, and that's because there's lots of moving parts that aren't always in our control, you know, a number of regulatory things and documentation, et cetera. But that is the timeframe that you can expect in terms of putting this company together. Now, the next topic which we know you're very interested about, and that is synergies. Now deliberately, we hope that you have been picking up throughout the afternoon that there's so many areas of opportunity and synergy that this is not gonna be a struggle to find the opportunities. In fact, we were discussing with the team probably the biggest challenge is gonna be prioritizing which ones we go after.
Now, when we looked at, of course, the value creation of bringing these two companies together, we did do some quantification. Here what you're looking at is a real growth story. We're really looking at EUR 500 million of sales synergies as a number that we're very confident in and that we're gonna go after. Of course, that contributes to an EBITDA synergy of EUR 350 million. That's a combination of the contribution of the synergies coming from the top line, but of course cost synergies as well. Now, when you bring two companies together, two strong companies together, you still do get more scale. For instance, one of the first areas of synergies needs to and should be things like sourcing direct, indirect, looking at our supply chain and all of those elements. That will happen.
Of course, when bringing two companies together, we will leverage all of the talents of both companies in the global enabling functions, but there will be, you know, efficiencies there to be gained as well, and that is part of the game. A lot of underpinning on the cost synergies as well. To extract those synergies does require to spend a bit of money. There is a cost to that. We're estimating that to be EUR 250 million over probably a couple of years or so to get through the process. That includes, of course, system developments. It includes some support and some of the design work, et cetera. This is effectively the big picture on the synergies.
Now, as you heard, Emmanuel will be leading the integration process, and therefore, I think it would be nice that we make use of the fact that he is with us today to maybe wrap up, bring together, and build a bit on those revenue synergies that you have seen coming through. Emmanuel, if you will join me.
Thank you, Geraldine. Thank you for taking me the opportunity to wrap up. To recap, all has been said by my dear colleagues, by Patrick, by Philip, Ivo, Ilaria, about synergies. I think I would like before I go maybe more into the detail, the notes are not on the screen, but I don't need notes just for you to know. Thank you. Thank you very much. I think it's about the synergy, it's about going beyond Taste & Beyond. Beyond perfumery, another step going beyond. Second, it's about combining the building blocks, the technologies, the innovation coming from the two companies. Third, it's about increasing the reach, you know, in some segment where DSM is very present and where in some others Firmenich is very present.
I would summarize, I would say the entire synergy by these three main pieces. If you go more now in details in the Food & Beverage. Food & Beverage will represent 60% of the synergies. Just for you to know, Patrick and I, we know ourselves for quite a while. We tried already to combine our two power house together in contracts, et cetera. We are more than educated together to, I would say, to jump into those synergies and make them happening as fast as possible. We summarize it with five different segments, I would say. The first one, it's the functional nutrition.
Functional nutrition is going in many segments, beverage, energy drinks, diet and nutrition, cereal bars, et cetera, where we combine, I would say the taste, the maskers, the texture with all the technology coming from DSM. I think it's a great opportunity, and we saw that all over the space. Second, it's about, I would say plant-based food is the same thing, combining the two technologies of two company in one hand and ensure to the more and more complex brief which are coming from our customers. As I told in the past, local customer are becoming bigger in this space. They're asking more and more complex briefs, and being able to answer to the complexity of the brief is very important. Third, it's about dairy. DSM is a leader in the dairy space.
By the way, we wanted to go more in the dairy space for the dairy analog business. Combining those two together create a very big machine to potentially lead the space and bring the two technologies together. Fourth, it's about savory. Same thing. Gilbert said this morning we were among the three category, it was not the biggest one. We invest a lot in that space. I think DSM did the same. Combining those two will bring, for sure, additional synergy moving forward. Last, it's about a new segment for us. My dear colleagues from Firmenich will be happy because I didn't want to speak about pet food in the past because we didn't have the reach.
Now with DSM, with their position in the vitamin business and more far beyond technologies and vitamin, we will be able to work together in that space. This is 60% of the synergies. For sure, Philip, mentioned that very much deep. I would say bringing the taste in in all the different segment is, but also being part of a very big powerhouse in the dietary and nutrition segment is key. Last, I would say the last 15% for Ilaria, and if you want to do more, don't hesitate. Going beyond with beyond perfumery. Beyond perfumery with those actives in the cosmetic active.
On top of what has been done already with Dreamwood, that has been nicely presented by Ilaria, and also looking forward for bringing even more capabilities to go beyond that space. That's in a nutshell, Geraldine, how I would recap, summarize all the different synergies which we are more than willing to go for moving forward.
Thank you, Emmanuel. The mic is on. There we go. Thank you, Emmanuel. Please don't move. One more question for you, which I know is in the mind of people in the room because we've been hearing it, and that is actually about the integration. Yes, revenue synergies, et cetera, but if you think about how are we gonna integrate these two companies, what first comes to mind?
First, we will deliver synergies. I think it has been clearly defined, clearly said, but I want to repeat that this is really a first priority for this merger. Second is to create also an agile, customer-centric operating model for the company. We have a lot of things to do coming from the two legacies. Knowing that, in fact, out of the four businesses, one will have to merge together, which is F&B and T&B together. I think we know well enough, both of us, Patrick and I, his experience from the food ingredient side, our ingredients, our experience from Taste & Beyond side, to know how potentially to combine profitably, the two legacies together and create really the avenue for the future. Third, it's about culture.
As you know, a new company will exist, really live based on a new culture. I think it has been said several times, a lot of common foundation on science, on sustainability, and in fact, putting those foundations together to create a new culture for the 28,000 people of the new assemblage. I think it will be a great story. That's how I would see, I would say, the first viewpoint, helicopter view of what we will do, very, very fast in the integration.
Thank you very much, Emmanuel. Appreciate it. I'm sure we'll get questions in the Q&A on that, so.
Thank you. Thank you, Geraldine.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Okay. Last two slides, and then it will be break time. Very quickly, of course, the financials. When you have a look here, the scale of this company is clear. You see here, obviously, the impact of the synergies when you aggregate the company. We're looking here at a EUR 12 billion top-line company, very profitable. The two points I would just like to highlight here is not only profitable, but with a very good cash generation, history, and a very strong reason to believe that that will continue to be the case. The other thing in terms of your modeling, for those of you who are doing the models, in terms of the tax rates, you can expect the new co to be pretty similar to DSM as it is today.
Now, when it comes to midterm financial ambitions, and of course, this is something that we all care about, here you have two companies that have systematically been growing above market. Generally speaking, both DSM and Firmenich have been talking about a mid-single digit organic growth. Now, you have just heard throughout the afternoon how much the synergy value is and where it's coming from, and that should, of course, enable us to grow a bit faster. This is why we're indicating a midterm growth of 5%-7% for the combined company. Now, when it comes to margins, of course, the contribution of the cost synergies will kick in, and this is why here we're looking structurally at a midterm 22%-23% type company. Knowing that here we're really in the mindset of creating a company for the future.
It's not about extracting every ounce of synergy that one can. It's really about shaping a company and reinvesting as well in this company as we integrate and as we move forward and really capture a much bigger pie of the market out there through the synergies. Importantly as well, this is a deal because of its structure, which will basically mean a very good balance sheet for the NewC o. A lot of mergers are structured differently, where, you know, the starting company is very much at a high leverage, is immediately having to think about divestments and things. In this case, everything is core. The balance sheet will be solid, healthy and enabling us to invest into the future. Which of course is not unimportant as well from a promise when it comes to dividends.
You know that as DSM, we have had a very strong promise of stable, preferably rising. The Firmenich history is to have reinvested a lot of their profits, and you saw that through the percentage of reinvestment in R&D, for example. Here you're seeing an indicated policy of 40%-60% payout ratio, which will be very much in line with the past performance of both companies. Something we're very confident as well. Now when it comes to value creation, I mean, there's many ways of doing this. Two weeks ago, I was talking about EPS accretion, et cetera. I know many of you in the room did your own calculations. Now, it goes without saying that this deal is EPS accretive. If you take NewCo and synergies versus DSM of today, clearly EPS accretive.
If we say, well, if we take NewCo and DSM minus materials, we're in double digit, and if you play with whatever permutation you want, this is very value accretive for shareholders. Why? Because you're bringing two very strong companies together and creating this fantastic synergetic opportunity thanks to the complementarity of our capability sets, our cultures, our science, and you've heard all about it today. With that, it basically brings us to the Q&A, and we hope all of the team here that you have found the presentations very helpful. Now, the Q&A will not just be the three CEOs, it will be the whole team. What we propose is a 20-minute break, and we will see you back here to finish off the afternoon in a conversation. Thank you very much. Thank you for coming back.
I know the booths are very nice, thank you for rejoining us. Thank you as well online for bearing with us during this break. Hope you also got to make yourself a coffee, maybe. Q&A, we're putting a little bit more light in the room. Please bear in mind we do have the webcast going on still. When you wanna ask a question, if you could, A, put your hand up, the mic will come your way. To help us, if you could maybe stand, introduce yourself.
Perfect.
To make sure that we have enough time to cover the different questions, if you could maybe, you know, restrict yourself to two questions to start, and then we go around. I don't know, you know, how many hands we're gonna see, but that should be helping us. Now, the good news is there's the three of us here, but the intention is to make use of the whole team and all of the speakers. This is firstly a hint to the team to get ready to come to the podium so that the webcast can see you when you answer. Also, if you have a specific question you'd like to address to any of our colleagues, please feel free as well. There we go. That's a little bit the format for the Q&A.
Feel free, and whoever wants to raise their hands, on we go. Okay. Just to break the mold, we won't start on the first row. Let's go. I saw a hand in the middle of the room. Yeah. Lady, yeah, if you stand up, the mic will come to you. Exactly. That will be easier. Perfect. Thank you.
Isha Sharma from Stifel. I just have a couple. In the last 10 years, we have seen DSM made around 30-odd acquisitions, if I'm right, and you had a very strong focus on costs. If I look at Firmenich and the cost buckets that they have, they are actually quite lean. I must say that they are either better or equivalent to the other F&F players. Do you think that there is scope of doing further in that direction? That would be the first one. On the second one, what do you think was the reason that during the integration phase of IFF and DuPont, we saw IFF lose market share. What is it that you can do differently to avoid that, especially during the integration phase? Thank you.
Okay, thank you very much. Let me maybe start with the cost synergies, and then I'll hand over to one of you. Gilbert? Okay. On the cost synergies, I hope that it came across very clearly that our predominant focus here is to build a growth company. We spent 95% of our time really focusing on where the synergy is gonna come from, how are we gonna capture them, how do we go to market, how are the customers gonna react, et cetera, et cetera. A lot of confidence, and really genuinely, the funnel of opportunities is very big, and it will be all about focusing. Now, when it comes to the cost synergies, we're also, you know, showing here a mix of 50%-60% revenue synergies, 40%-50% cost synergies.
Now, as we do the work, we will of course see how far it goes. Currently we feel that this is a good estimate of where we are gonna land, partly also because we wanna be in a position to reinvest. We're not really into a story here of maximizing to the Nth degree the cost savings. In fact, it's about really also keeping enough space to invest into the future and not compromising, for example, at all anything to do with science, innovation, et cetera. That's really how we look at the cost synergy picture. Maybe to your question then on IFF, DuPont. You wanna?
Yeah. Happy to answer this question. I think this is where you need to take into consideration that the merger between DSM and Firmenich is very different. If you look at IFF DuPont, indeed, they lost market share because the disruption in their business was significant. You know, if you look at the churn they had in leadership roles, you know, that was significant, and the merger risk was higher. These were two companies that were underperforming. Their key focus was on cost. Here you look at two companies that are performing strongly, gaining market share, growing fast, well-invested businesses. Second, very low-risk merger because you have these complementary businesses with low overlap. When we have, you know, pitched the deal to the rating agencies, you know, Moody's and S&P, what was the feedback that we got? Low-risk merger.
There is one overlap in one business, that is the Taste & Beyond and the Food & Beverage. If you look at the way we have set up the exec for the new dsm-firmenich, there is no disruption in three of the business units. They are still run by the same people. You know, Ivo running the Animal Nutrition & Health. You know, Philip is still running his division. Patrick will be running the Food & Beverage and the Taste & Beyond. Ilaria is still running Perfumery & Beauty. Emmanuel, who is running today the Taste & Beyond, becomes the chief integration officer of the firm. Therefore, you know, the business leaders are hands-on to make sure that there is no disruption. That's why I'm very confident, and it's a different situation.
Mm-hmm. Thank you, Gilbert.
Can I.
Oh, sure. Go ahead.
Building on what Emmanuel said there on the synergies. Let's be very clear that priority number one would be cost synergies on the sourcing, purchasing, supply side, right? I mean, for all suppliers who are listening in to this fantastic webcast, we will ask for your support to be part of the success of this company, and we're gonna do that already now between now and when we have the closing date, all within clean rooms and legal boundaries, et cetera.
The planning.
We will plan that. Within the legal boundaries itself, with a clean room, et cetera, so the moment that the closing is there, we can push the button. That's one. Secondly, priority will be top line. That we will do when we all get the agreements in, and then I think Gilbert already announced that we have two very competent leaders who make that work. The rest we will look from a risk mitigation perspective. I think it's already the wrong comparison with IFF before because we are a completely different company. Also in our approach, we will do it far more risk mitigated than what we've seen normally.
We will do this risk mitigated step by step, where only the majority of the company will be touched in the taste ingredients and Food & Beverage area.
Great.
Okay, front row. Ladies first.
Hi there. It's Georgina Fraser from Goldman Sachs. Thank you for taking my questions. I've got two. The first one is if you could give us a bit of color around how you determined the R&D guidance that you've given us. What were the assumptions behind the appropriate investment level for the combined entity? My second question is, now that customers who would previously go to Firmenich and then to DSM and back to Firmenich can go to a combined entity, are you saving customers' development steps, and if so, how many? Thanks.
Oh, okay. Dimitri, you wanna do the R&D?
Sorry, on the first or the second?
Do you wanna-
R&D.
The first.
I think I've clearly indicated that it's R&D intense businesses. I think it's clearly indicated that the combination will continue the track record of EUR 700 million year-on-year. Also building that, we are building a growth company. We will review on a yearly basis how much needs to be reinvested, but it's clearly stated that this is a growth company going forward. The R&D, the science, remember the two businesses together, coupled by science, it's the glue of why this company is going to work and why the four businesses can make a differentiation. We will continue to invest on that science and foundation, and we gave a bit of a guidance on the slide that is at least EUR 700 million, and we'll review it obviously on a year-to-year basis.
Not on a year-to-year basis as such, but on a long-term basis, what is needed year- on- year, right? Because innovation starting tomorrow doesn't bring results except the week thereafter. You need to have a long-term view, which both our companies have.
Yeah. Now, to your second question, I think a lot of our colleagues would like to jump in, but maybe, Gilbert, you wanna have a first few words in?
Yeah. I will say a few words.
I don't know if you wanna invite Emmanuel or Patrick.
I'll ask, you know, Emmanuel to build on it. With our customers on steps, it's not one size fits all because, you know, globals operate different than regionals, locals, and startups. You know, some customers, you know, will be delighted. You know, they will come to you and say, "Look, I don't have the capabilities. This is what I need from you." The new combined company can offer, you know, everything, which would be also an opportunity. For some, you know, of the global customers, they might, you know, still prefer, you know, to take the pieces based on the creativity for the first year before having the confidence of combining them together.
It's not a one size fits all, and that's why, you know, when you saw the presentations, it's very well identified, you know, these steps and how all of this will come together in order to come with a solution where the new dsm-firmenich will tap into a higher part of the value chain of these products. Emmanuel, do you want to build on this?
Yes. Another angle I wanted to add to all what has been said is, I think the last two weeks I spoke with 156 different customers around the globe, okay? About the deal, about what they think about their feedback, et cetera, et cetera. I am sorry to say, but I have not had one negative feedback coming from them. The question is how we will combine, you know, those technology together, the building block together. That's all what we will have to do with Patrick moving forward, at the right speed by creating value, by making it profitable, because sometimes putting portfolio too fast in the same basket may be destructive.
We have an avenue of synergies in terms of building blocks of technologies moving forward at customers. The reaction of the customer is the best answer that you can have from the market overall.
Right, because every customer is rethinking their supply chain and their way of working, especially with all the disruption that people have been through over the last two and a half years. We are very pleased that we had an overwhelming positive response. Why? Because the two companies, DSM and Firmenich, were stood there to support their customers with a high OTIF level during the period. It's an opportunity for us to say, "Okay, can we look at this model differently?" As long as, you know, we could leverage what, Dimitri shared with you, the 88 manufacturing facilities that we have all over the world, the 78 application labs, the 40 creation centers, and the 70 premixes. This is music to the ears of our customers because then they see the reach that we have.
This will give them the comfort around supply chain and at the same time, gives us and the future company, the nimbleness, the agility, and the proximity that we need to continue serving them with a higher share. Yes.
Thanks. Martin Roediger from Kepler Cheuvreux. Two questions. What is the benefit of having two headquarters, especially the one in Delft? It's not clear to me. Secondly, Firmenich owns a stake in Robertet. What will happen with that? Do you intend to sell that before the merger, or will that be part of the merged company? Thanks.
Dimitri, do you wanna take?
Yep.
Uh-huh.
We have two headquarters, not one in Delft, one in Maastricht and one in Kaiseraugst. The Food & Beverage / Taste & Beyond will be led out of Delft. Why do we have two headquarters? I think Geraldine said it more eloquently than I can say it, but let me give it a try just to repeat what she just said. We wanna build on the talent base we have, one. Secondly, we also want to have a balanced representation. From the two companies, merger of equals, I think it's important to have two headquarters. Thirdly, I will add a new element to it. In today's world, hybrid working is part of the game, so it doesn't really matter where you work from. We would like to maintain the talents we already have at these two locations.
Those were the argumentations around the two headquarters.
Mm-hmm.
Talent-
Do you wanna-
Ecosystems that exist, et cetera. Robertet, it's a very good question. Firmenich has a minority equity stake in Robertet. You know, this will be part of the deal, and we are not planning to exit this equity in Robertet, and this will be part of the new deal. You know, we've invested in taking this minority stake in Robertet. Robertet is a very good competitor. We saw this opportunity, and you know, we will maintain this minority shareholding for the future.
Mm-hmm. Thank you, Gilbert. Let's go a little bit to the left of the room maybe. Yes, someone standing up there. Lady on the left. Thank you.
Hi.
Hi.
Lisa De Neve from Morgan Stanley. I have two questions. Thank you so much for carefully outlining revenue synergies. Having a question on integrated solutions, you've discussed. It's quite clear to me what the volume opportunities are, but how should we think about the margin profile that comes from an integrated solution? Is there a possibility that if you're working with multinationals, they may want a discount from you because they're now working with both of you? Following on from that, my understanding is that Firmenich works with a pricing model mostly on a per kg basis, and that the pricing model from DSM may be slightly different. How will the pricing model towards your solutions evolve as a combined business? Sorry, different long question. Secondly, I had a small question on pet food.
How will your market position evolve, and how will the growth profile of the pet food business look like when you bring in some of the palatability qualities of Firmenich into DSM? Thank you very much.
Okay. I think we may wish to invite Patrick, for instance, to comment on some of this, maybe somewhat detailed questions at this stage.
Sorry.
If I may say. Patrick, do you wanna have a go?
Thank you for the question. Let me address first the question on pricing. I'm not privy to the pricing strategy of Firmenich, as you can imagine at this moment in time. However, also our pricing strategy is not necessarily on a kilogram basis by itself. It has to do really per product, what the added value of it is. You've seen the list of ingredients, and depending on the application, depending on the ingredient, but also the end market segment, we set pricing. That's not purely on a kilogram basis. We have diverse pricing strategies, and that's also necessary to create the maximum value out of our portfolio. That's on the pricing. On the pet food, that's exactly a very interesting area to grow, the palatability.
I think that's where the next step is for us to take a step in. Reflecting now where we stand today, the pet food business has only been transferred to Food & Beverage for January 1 of this year. The reason for that was inherently the dynamics of pet food are much more equivalent to the ones in human nutrition in Food & Beverage than in animal health. That's why Ivo and I decided that this is fitted better with the F ood & B everage business. Now we're looking at strategy to accelerate growth. That growth based on portfolio of DSM.
As such, we have there set as a target area the gut health, pet gut health, because we have a lot of capabilities in the gut health area due to our microbiome capabilities also for animals and for humans. With the addition of Firmenich to dsm-firmenich here with the merger, palatability is definitely the area where we are going to look at. Emmanuel mentioned some of the capabilities that Firmenich has that they've not brought to the market, and the reason for that was that they didn't have a dedicated route to market. Well, today we do have that dedicated market.
Thank you, Patrick. Next set of hands. Back to the middle front table. There were a lot of hands there, so either of you.
A random pick.
Hi. Gunther Zechmann from Bernstein. Can I ask about returns on capital of this deal?
Yeah.
When do you expect to earn your cost of capital, and can you just describe the trajectory? The second question, more specific on the Firmenich side. You had only one year of historicals there. Free cash looked very strong, around 14% of sales. Can you give us a longer average timeframe, maybe similar to the growth CAGR that you've given us? Thank you.
Yeah. When it comes to the detailed modeling, we will provide more information, of course, in the prospectus with all the modeling, et cetera. In terms of the return on capital, the impact of the deal structure is something that we need to work through. Because it's a tender offer, we need to look at how that impacts the cost of capital. That is one of the downsides of this kind of construct. It's a legal construct. It doesn't change anything to the economic realities that, you know, this is a good cash generative picture overall. In terms of the modeling, I'm afraid you're gonna have to be a little patient in terms of doing all of that. Remember that here we're bringing two companies. It's a merger of equals, so there's no premium paid.
What we're bringing together is effectively the capital base of two companies with similar cash generating capabilities. On top of that, of course, you have the synergy value that will come. These are the different moving parts, and as we, you know, put all of that together more in detail, then we will be able to disclose that part. Now, I think it was. I didn't quite get your second question on the. Was it the free cash flow?
Firmenich.
Okay. The free cash flow of Firmenich. Yeah.
Benoît can answer.
Okay. I don't know if Benoît.
Yes.
Yeah. Why don't you join us? Mm-hmm.
Yes. Thanks for the question. You're right. In the financial year 2021, we had a pretty strong free cash flow. There was some exceptional in this free cash flow. If you look at the historical conversion of EBITDA into free cash flow, historically, we've been converting at a rate of 50% our EBITDA into free cash flow, which is equivalent pretty much to a 10% rate on revenue from an historical standpoint.
Thank you, Benoît.
Thank you. Next hands. I see on the left, the middle of the room. Gentleman. Yep. Thank you.
Chetan again from JPMorgan.
Mm-hmm.
A couple of deal mechanics questions. First, the share count split between DSM and Firmenich, that's fixed, so that has no relation to DSM share price. Second, can you confirm the lock-up period for Firmenich shareholders, if there is one, post the completion of transaction? Third, more strategic question is, it seems the integrated solution is now the new trend, new fashion, new fad, what we might call in this industry. How do you see that impacting the competitive dynamics in this market over the next five years in general?
Mm.
Maybe let me start with the lock-up. Indeed, the number, the percentages at inception is part of the exchange ratio, and therefore, that does not get impacted by share price developments. This is truly a merger of equals. It's predominantly in nature an equity transaction, and so that is what it is. When it comes to the lock-up period, there are very customary lock-up period terms. This will all be in the documentation with the tender offer and the prospectus. I think importantly, and that is probably the key message, is that the shareholders behind Firmenich are really interested in being long-term investors in this New Co. They see all of the value that you have seen today.
While there's a bit of monetization at the inception, their intention is to be in it for the long run and for the value creation that this is going to bring. That's one part. There's the usual customary, orderly marketing arrangements as well, you know. The whole deal is constructed with all the, I would say, the bells and whistles that you would expect of this kind of a deal. The fundamental is that that is absolutely not, the intention is not a monetizing. I was sharing earlier with Will, discussing that, you know, if we had approached the shareholders of Firmenich and said, assuming that we could, "Buy you," it would be a no-go. No way. You know? This is about creating a fantastic number one company in our space.
That's really the dynamics there. Now your third question, did you catch that?
Yeah. That's about competitors, so let me just say that we are consumer-focused and a customer-focused company. I think you've heard all the synergies, more consumer-customer related.
Mm-hmm.
If that has an impact on the competitors, I'll leave that all up to you, but we are focused on the consumers and grow our market.
Mm-hmm.
Agree.
Okay. Next hands. Straight ahead, middle of the room. If you stand up, then you will get the mic.
Thank you. Cathal Kenny from Davy Research. Two questions. Firstly, on Firmenich. If we take the two divisions, can you give us some color on the levels of customer concentration within those two businesses? My second question relates to revenue synergies and the role the premix platform within DSM plays in synergy attainment on the revenue side. Thanks.
Okay, thank you very much. Customer concentration, do we invite someone or do you take it, Gilbert? Yeah.
I'm happy to go have a go at it. Into perfumery. On consumer fragrance there will be a higher concentration, mainly because, you know, the top five, top six companies in the world are the biggest, you know, and you know who they are. The concentration, you know, will be slightly higher than 1/3, not more than that. It is far more fragmented than people think, especially in a world where, you know, local customers, regional customers and startups, you know, are gaining traction. You have far less concentration on the Taste & Beyond business.
Thank you, Gilbert . Philip, would you like to comment on the role of the premix?
Yeah. There will be certainly benefits from DSM having 15 primarily dry blending premix sites, and then Firmenich having much more experience than we have in liquid blending. Right? I think the combination of those two technologies will be very synergistic, as otherwise we would probably move into liquid blending and you would probably have moved the other way. Yeah, that will definitely also be an area of synergy.
Great asset. Thank you, Philip. To the back. Blue shirt. Guess there's a lot of that. Yep, if you stand up. Thank you.
Hi there. David Price from Veritas Investment Partners. I'm probably primarily focused on the Taste business. If we think about the opportunities from combining the two businesses, what level of reorganization of the go-to market strategy or sales team do you think is required? A second minor question related to the integration. Are the two companies on a similar IT systems? That can often be a stumbling block at times.
Absolutely. Sales teams in Taste. Do you wanna take that, Dimitri, or shall we?
Sure. Let me ask, we first ask Patrick, and then we'll see how Emmanuel reacts.
I don't think the sales team do the work on it. That will be part of the integration team.
Exactly. It's early days, of course. Yeah, so.
It's very premature. It's very early days.
Yeah. Patrick, do you wanna have a go?
No, it's very early days. Of course, it's all about the synergy, finding the synergy. We have to go into discussions with both go-to-markets and see how to get synergy out of that. The whole idea will be to be and remain customer-focused and regionally present. I think those are the two things that will be underlying fundamental when we look at how to organize our organizations. The businesses have some different dynamics, and we have to, whatever we decide how to do it, we have to make sure to mitigate also downsides for some of the downsides.
We have to be able, when we choose the model, to also make sure that when there's some consequence where we make business different, that we mitigate that, because we said earlier we do not intend to see, we wanna make sure there is no loss of business, as we shared earlier.
Yeah.
Let me clearly say that we go for one go-to market. The work needs to be done when we are allowed to. It's not that we have two go-to markets, et cetera, but hey, that's why we have Patrick and Emmanuel who try to find a way on how to best construct that. It will be part of the integration discussion. To get the synergies in, we need to act as one company, right? One go-to market, one face to the customer or maybe that as background. It's too early to tell how that exactly works out. What is clear, there's a lot of synergies to be gained, so we really need to think how we can bring that home the best and quickly as we can.
Yeah.
I'm looking also to Emmanuel whether he fully agrees. You wanna add a bit onto it?
Uh-huh.
Please do.
I just want to add one thing. The model between T&B, Taste & Beyond, and Food & Beverage is different because one is more organized by product line globally, and we have a local business. By the way, 75%, more than 75% of our business is with local companies. Also there is one thing that we want to keep, which is a differentiator, and we will not kill that at all. We will even enhance that, is the risk management. What I call this morning the engine, you know? We receive 50,000 briefs every year. We worked on 25,000 of those. Because the company are becoming more and more local, they complexify the brief. In the past, the brief was just give me vanilla flavor. Okay?
Now give me a whole bunch of I want to have some texture. I want to have some functional nutritional fact. I want to have sometimes some color, X, Y, and Z. In fact, we will keep that machine and gradually integrating some of the core technologies of DSM to keep this profitable machine of F&B and at the same time continue to be extremely efficient, extremely effective on the food ingredient side. This is the heart of what Patrick and us we have to make.
Yeah.
Great.
Thank you very much, Emmanuel. To your question on IT systems, I touched upon it briefly when we were discussing the cost of synergies. Now of course, when you bring two companies together, we have different DNA when it comes to systems. This is one of the areas where also the phasing really matters. Now we were discussing during the breaks, what is gonna be the most important element, and you triggered those thoughts in asking about systems. That is that we need to fly the plane while we're integrating the businesses. Clearly, IT integrations are very necessary at some stage, but we have to be very smart in deciding where is it critical fast and where can it come later and how do we pace all of that.
It's embedded in the estimated EUR 250 million of cost that there will be some systems integration, of course. Beyond that, it's, you know, how do we do this in a very, very good way that we're not disrupting anybody, particularly in this world where I think you've heard several times reliability of supply chains, OTIF, et cetera, is what keeps your customers happy. That needs to obviously, you know, be undisrupted, as part of the process of IT integration.
Great.
That's where we are at this stage, and then I can tell you, the devil's in the detail. It's in that area. Okay, hands. Ooh, front table. Oh. I think.
Yep.
Now you can hear me. It's Nicola Tang again from BNP Paribas Exane. I wanted to ask two things. You've referenced a couple of times the strength of the balance sheet, you know, straight away. I think on the call on the 31st of May, you talked a little bit about potential for bolt-ons, post-deal. I guess it's a little bit early to think about exactly what those areas might be, but perhaps you could answer on a standalone basis which areas were of particular interest to you from a bolt-on perspective. The second question, I wanted to ask a little bit about sugar reduction or specifically stevia. In the DSM slides, you know, you referenced there's many innovation projects that we're pretty familiar with on the DSM side, including Avansya.
I noticed you didn't mention that earlier, but given that Gilbert earlier was talking about the strength of the sugar reduction side, perhaps you could just talk a little bit about the benefits of combining the two businesses in that specific area. Thanks.
Very much. I don't know if you wanna give a heads-up on the sugar reduction while I answer the first question?
We'll ask Emmanuel.
It will be Emmanuel.
He'll handle this.
I hold that there. When it comes to capital allocation, indeed, we're putting together because of the structure and the two companies, it's gonna be a healthy balance sheet from the start. Again, I was asked, you know, okay, what does that mean for capital allocation? Here you're really looking at a picture where we will have the ability to continue to invest in a very similar capital allocation philosophy that you are familiar with when it comes to DSM. That is basically investing in our organic growth and innovation projects, which means of course science as well. A very strong commitment to the dividend, then maybe some M&A. Last, you know, if we come to a position where clearly the balance sheet is not sufficiently utilized, then we never say no to some returning of capital.
Now, we are also very mindful that we mustn't overburden the organization, yeah? There are two big priorities. One is staying very focused on our business, our customers, and the other one is getting this integration right. Now, on the other hand, of course, of the four businesses, we know that Food & Beverage, Taste & Beyond is where clearly most of the shaping will be happening. There may be some opportunity for a bit of bolt-on, and I'm emphasizing a bit, could be in Animal Nutrition, HNC or Perfumery & Beauty. Really, I would say with a lot of caution, because we don't want to, you know, bite off more than we can chew at the same time.
I don't think it's really the moment to go into what kind of bolt-ons we would then do. I think a little bit of letting dust settle first is probably better there. Then sugar reduction.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
You have not seen sugar reduction as a list of the synergies before, okay? We have. Why? Because in fact, at Firmenich today, as I said before, we built an ecosystem which is composed of many technologies that we developed, we insource to really create the momentum of sugar reduction, which is, we believe by far the number one in the market. If you remember what Gilbert said this morning. Last six months was +25%. It's a continuous double-digit growth over the last three or four years. Now what DSM is bringing is some ingredients which can be used as a toolbox in the ecosystem that we are building.
Now looking from a helicopter view, there is much more synergies looking at nutrition, plant-based, dairy, future pet food moving forward. By the way, we have plenty of extracts which can go into the pet food beyond the palatability, beyond this, the pet sugar reduction opportunity.
Thank you, Emmanuel. Hands. Any more hands? No? That's probably because the booths are very attractive, and we will be all having a drink together, so that is nice as well. Just a last scan of the room. One more hand.
Good evening. Reg Watson from ING. A couple of questions for Gilbert. I noticed that your executive team is reasonably new to Firmenich, many of them with two or four years tenure. You've gone outside the company to get expertise, bring like management expertise. I'm wondering what attracted you to these people, what skills you were looking for.
Yeah. Look, it's a very good question. The philosophy of Firmenich has always been meritocracy, and we've always, you know, worked extremely hard to attract the best talent into the company, and I feel very proud of the leadership team we have. If you look over the last eight years, you know, we've. Here I'm looking at my leadership team, the top 200 in the company. 70% of them, you know, were promoted into new roles, so it gives you an idea of the depth of talent we have. Now if I look at my exec, yes, you know, we've managed to attract great talent from outside, but at the same time, you know, we have great people who worked for the company for a long time.
Eric Nicolas, my COO, who is here, you know, Eric has been with the company for 11 years. He was my CFO, when I joined the company. Boet Brinkgreve, that is not with us here today, has been with the company for 15 years and is also on exec. It's a combination of, you know, the best talent, and I feel very proud I have 7 different nationalities and attracting outstanding talent, as you saw from the team. We have always had this philosophy of, you know, the combination, attracting the best from outside and at the same time, you know, growing talent from within. It gives you an idea of when you do this combination, then you can't miss a turn. You saw where we are on digitalization, on naturality.
We shifted the center of gravity of the company towards biotech, towards life science, and all of this has been done by the capabilities that you bring that will also open your eyes to these new important, you know, consumer opportunities that should not be disregarded.
Thank you very much.
We're back. Sorry. Just one final question to give you the floor, Gilbert. If we were to ask your competitors what Firmenich does well and what it doesn't do so well, what do you think their answers would be?
Yeah. Look, so far, obviously, you know, they know that you are on the core list. They know that you are very strong in science. They will definitely talk about science, talk about sustainability, talk about client intimacy. What they will say that we could do better, which is the reality, we have subscale in Taste & Beyond. We have a EUR 1.5 billion business. You heard from Emmanuel talking about the EUR 60 billion nutrition opportunity. At the same time, you know, when you look at our perfumery business, we are not in cosmetic actives. That's why when we look at the combination with DSM, we see this addresses this gap. Most of my competitors, if you look the Germans, the Americans and the Swiss, they are already in cosmetic actives. We are not.
Now with this combination, it addresses this gap. The second area is about scale in Taste & Beyond. We've picked our fights, and this is where we're growing with the trends of the future, but scale helps. The third area that is critical that needs to be factored is biotech. You heard Sarah mentioning biotech. You know, biotech is revolutionary and transformational for our industry for the future. We have pioneered this in F&F, but at the same time, we don't have end-to-end. Now with this partnership with DSM, what do we have? We have also manufacturing. We will have end-to-end biotech that will give us a competitive advantage. These will be the three areas that if I was my competitors, I will pinpoint at.
We have done our internal, you know, self-assessment, and we know what works, what couldn't work. All of these three are addressed part of the merger of equal and this dream, and this is one of the reasons why our shareholders are committed to the long term. Our shareholders are not looking at the value creation today. They are committed for the long term because they believe in the dream, and they want to make sure they are part of this long-term journey.
Thank you.
Thank you, Gilbert. Actually, that was a great question to bring us to the end of this Q&A session. For those of you with us here, of course, please stay with us. The booths are still here. Let's have a drink. Online, I would like to thank you all. Now I had the pleasure to open the day, and therefore I would like to hand over to you, Dimitri, to have the pleasure to close the day.
Can I say one word before I hand it to Dimitri?
Would you like to say one word first? Okay.
I want to thank you also for, you know, showing up today. We definitely have a small gift from Firmenich for you to take back home. At the same time, as you saw, you know, there are so many great brands on these displays, and all of these brands, you know, are brands that you usually have at home. We will give you also, each one of you, the opportunity to select one item to take with you. You will take your Firmenich bag, but at the same time, you know, we don't want to waste the stuff. These are great brands, and these are, you know, consumer brands that you use at home. Every one of you, on top of your bag, please make sure you pick one of these items you could take with you back home. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Gilbert. I've seen some first-mover advantage at some of the tables. That some of you had spotted that this may be the case. Whoo. Well done for being the first movers.
There's enough, so don't worry. I would like to close just with one sentence.
Yeah.
Me too. I think we've been part of the wow experience, employees, customers, and I hope that you share that same wow experience with us. The wow is also linked to a dream, and a dream is fantastic for the moment, but the real dream is worth something if you make it reality. I hope that you've seen the executive team here, and you've seen 90% of it, only Mieke's not here, who is committed, but also feels seriously responsible to make that dream reality. Geraldine and myself will feel fully responsible for it as co-CEOs, but it's not us. It's the whole combination, and you've seen a lot of our future colleagues outside in the corridor. We feel that responsibility. We don't take it lightheartedly.
We feel the commitment, and I hope you share that commitment with us because we're gonna make that dream reality. It's a promise. Thank you.
Thanks, everyone. Goodbye.