Here are 1-3 brief analogies to describe International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF):

• "The 'Intel Inside' for flavors, fragrances, and functional food ingredients."
• "A diversified ingredients supplier like 3M, but focused on the taste, scent, and health components of consumer products."
• "The Dolby Labs for your senses – creating the specialized flavors for your food and drink, and the fragrances for your perfumes and household products."

• Flavors: Creates and manufactures flavor compounds and ingredients for food and beverage products to enhance taste and mouthfeel.
• Fragrances: Develops and produces fragrance compounds and ingredients used in perfumes, personal care items, and household products.
• Health & Biosciences: Provides a broad portfolio of ingredients, including enzymes, probiotics, cultures, and natural food protection solutions for various applications like food, beverage, home, and personal care.
• Pharma Solutions: Offers pharmaceutical excipients and functional ingredients critical for drug delivery systems and dietary supplement formulations.

International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF) primarily sells its products to other companies (B2B model) rather than directly to individual consumers. IFF's customers are large, multinational companies across various industries, including food and beverage, personal care, home care, and fine fragrance.

Due to the competitive nature of its industry and the broad diversity of its global customer base, IFF does not publicly disclose the names of its individual major customers. Its financial reports typically state that no single customer accounts for more than 10% of its net sales.

However, IFF's flavors, fragrances, and cosmetic active ingredients are essential inputs for many well-known consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies. Examples of the types of public companies that would utilize IFF's ingredients include, but are not limited to:

• Food & Beverage Companies:
  • PepsiCo (PEP)
  • The Coca-Cola Company (KO)
  • Mondelēz International (MDLZ)
  • The Kraft Heinz Company (KHC)
• Personal Care & Home Care Companies:
  • The Procter & Gamble Company (PG)
  • Unilever (UL)
  • Colgate-Palmolive Company (CL)
  • Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)
• Fine Fragrance & Beauty Companies:
  • Estée Lauder Companies Inc. (EL)
  • L'Oréal S.A. (LRLCY - ADR)

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J. Erik Fyrwald, Chief Executive Officer

Erik Fyrwald joined IFF as Chief Executive Officer and a member of its Board of Directors in February 2024. He brings over four decades of executive and operational experience in the nutrition, agriculture, and chemicals industries, with a focus on driving innovation and profitable, sustainable growth. Prior to IFF, Mr. Fyrwald served as CEO of Syngenta since 2016. Before that, he was CEO of Univar Solutions from 2012 to 2016 and Chairman and CEO of Nalco from 2008 to 2011. Following Nalco's merger with Ecolab Inc., he served as President of Ecolab. Mr. Fyrwald began his career at DuPont in 1981, holding various leadership roles including Group Vice President of the Agriculture and Nutrition Division and Vice President and General Manager of DuPont's Nutrition and Health Business.

Michael DeVeau, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Michael DeVeau assumed the role of Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at IFF on January 1, 2025. He has been with IFF since 2009, bringing a blend of strategic vision and pragmatic execution. Before his appointment as CFO, Mr. DeVeau served as SVP, Corporate Finance and Investor Relations, overseeing corporate and divisional financial organization, operations finance, corporate strategy, mergers & acquisitions, and investor relations. His tenure at IFF also includes senior leadership positions such as SVP, Chief Investor Relations & Communications Officer; Divisional CFO for the Scent division; and Chief Strategy Officer. Prior to joining IFF, Mr. DeVeau held leadership roles in investor relations, finance, and corporate development at PepsiCo, and began his career as an equity research analyst at Citigroup Investment Research.

Yuvraj Arora, President, Taste and Chief Commercial Officer

Yuvraj Arora has served as President, Taste and Chief Commercial Officer at IFF since January 2025. He previously held the position of President, Nourish, where he was responsible for the company's largest division, driving revenue and margin growth, and leading a business transformation that resulted in the creation of the Taste and Food Ingredients business units. Before joining IFF in 2023, Mr. Arora spent over 20 years at Kellogg, where his roles included President, U.S. Categories for Kellogg North America, overseeing a multi-billion dollar portfolio through a period of significant growth and segment transformation.

Leticia Gonçalves, President, Health & Biosciences

Leticia Gonçalves joined IFF as President of Health & Biosciences, effective March 1, 2025. She most recently served as ADM's President of Precision Fermentation and ADM Ventures. Ms. Gonçalves has held leadership roles at various companies across Brazil, Europe, and the United States, and previously led ADM's specialty ingredients and foods business, which focused on innovation to maximize value creation in food security and supply chain resilience initiatives. Her background includes extensive experience in driving P&L growth in innovation-led businesses and accelerating high-performing teams, coupled with knowledge of IFF's end markets.

Andy Muller, President, Food Ingredients

Andy Muller joined IFF in December 2024 as President, Food Ingredients, and is part of the executive leadership team. He brings a wealth of experience in food ingredients, having most recently served as President of Functional Ingredients and Solutions at Corbion, where his focus included bakery, meat, dairy, confectionery, beverages, pet food, and biochemicals. Mr. Muller also spent 12 years with Danisco, which later became DuPont's Nutrition and Health business, where he expanded organizational capabilities, rationalized the product portfolio, and refocused efforts on core end-market applications.

The key risks to International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF) primarily revolve around a complex regulatory environment, volatile macroeconomic and geopolitical factors, and persistent operational and competitive challenges within its business segments.

1. Legal and Regulatory Compliance: IFF is significantly exposed to evolving and stringent legal and regulatory frameworks globally. This includes vulnerability to abrupt changes in trade, customs, and tax regimes, increased regulatory scrutiny over ingredients and chemical substances, which can lead to substantial costs, delays in product development, and higher compliance expenditures. The company also faces ongoing antitrust investigations and class-action lawsuits. Furthermore, compliance with a multitude of U.S. and foreign environmental, anti-bribery, anti-corruption, and data protection laws (such as GDPR and CCPA) presents a continuous risk of non-compliance, potential litigation, and associated financial impacts.
2. Macroeconomic and Geopolitical Instability: IFF's business is susceptible to adverse shifts in global, regional, and local economic conditions, which can negatively affect consumer product demand. Key financial risks include foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations and interest rate changes. Geopolitical events and global tariffs, particularly those impacting trade with China, introduce complexities in supply chains and increase cost structures, with tariff exposure alone estimated at over $100 million for 2025. Inflationary trends and uncertainties in pricing, especially concerning raw materials and energy, further strain the company's financial performance.
3. Operational Challenges and Intense Competition in Key Business Segments: The company faces significant operational headwinds, particularly within its Food Ingredients segment, which has experienced underperformance and is noted as a source of concern by analysts. Challenges in this segment could weigh on overall results and complicate a potential sale of the platform planned for 2026. IFF operates in an intensely competitive landscape, with a substantial portion of its sales dependent on a limited number of large multinational customers, who themselves face market pressures. The need for continuous innovation to introduce new products and the risk of commoditization in parts of its legacy business, coupled with low-cost competition in areas like fragrance ingredients, pose ongoing threats to market share and profitability.

Disruption from Advanced Biotechnology (Precision Fermentation & Synthetic Biology)

Clear evidence exists for the emergence of startups and established players leveraging precision fermentation and synthetic biology to produce a wide range of ingredients (flavors, proteins, enzymes, vitamins). These technologies offer the potential for more sustainable, cost-effective, and novel ingredient creation compared to traditional agricultural sourcing or chemical synthesis. This could disrupt IFF's core business by providing alternative, potentially superior, supply chains and product development pathways for its diverse portfolio in taste, scent, health & biosciences, and pharma solutions.

Accelerated Innovation from AI-driven Discovery and Design Platforms

The increasing application of artificial intelligence and machine learning in flavor and fragrance creation is evident, with competitors (e.g., Symrise with IBM's Philyra, Givaudan with its AI tools) and specialized tech companies developing platforms that can rapidly analyze data, predict consumer preferences, and design novel formulations. This emerging capability could drastically shorten product development cycles and reduce R&D costs, potentially enabling more agile competitors or even customers with in-house AI capabilities to bring differentiated products to market faster and more efficiently than traditional creative processes, thereby challenging IFF's established R&D model.

International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF) operates in several key segments, each addressing substantial global markets. As of Q1 2025, IFF's reportable segments are Taste, Food Ingredients, Health & Biosciences, Scent, and Pharma Solutions.

• Scent: IFF's Scent segment is a global leader in the fragrance industry, encompassing fine fragrances and fragrance ingredients for consumer products.
  • The global fragrance market size was estimated at USD 56.60 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach USD 74.76 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 4.9% from 2025 to 2030.
  • Another estimate values the global fragrances market at USD 76.71 billion in 2025, expected to reach USD 112.46 billion by 2030, with a CAGR of 7.95%.
  • North America's fragrance industry held a 33.30% revenue share globally in 2024. The U.S. fragrance product market was valued at USD 12.8 billion in 2023. Europe is also a dominant region, holding a 38% market share in 2023, valued at USD 20.03 billion.
• Taste: This segment provides custom flavor solutions for beverages, dairy, confectionery, and savory products.
  • The global flavors market size was estimated at USD 20.25 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach USD 28.54 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 5.9% from 2025 to 2030.
  • Another report valued the global flavor market size at USD 17.22 billion in 2024, expecting it to reach USD 27.65 billion by 2032 with a CAGR of 6.10%.
  • Asia Pacific dominated the global flavors market with a 36.1% share in 2024. North America held over 24.0% of the global revenue in 2024.
• Food Ingredients: This segment offers a portfolio of natural-based ingredients, including plant-based specialty food ingredients, food protection ingredients, savory solutions, texturants, emulsifiers, and sweeteners. These products serve the broader food and beverage industry.
  • The global food and beverage market size was USD 8.7 trillion in 2023 and is projected to reach USD 9.2 trillion in 2024, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.6%.
  • Another estimate indicates the global food and beverage market size was USD 6.69 trillion in 2024 and is expected to grow to USD 7.04 trillion in 2025, with a CAGR of 5.2%.
  • Asia-Pacific was the largest region in the food and beverages market in 2024.
• Health & Biosciences: This segment focuses on biotechnology and health-related solutions, including probiotics, enzymes, cultures, soy proteins, and other specialized ingredients for the pharmaceutical, food, and industrial sectors.
  • The global biotechnology market size was USD 1.68 trillion in 2024 and is projected to be worth around USD 3.75 trillion by 2034, expanding at a CAGR of 8.36% over the forecast period 2025 to 2034.
  • North America's biotechnology market size is estimated to reach around USD 1.31 trillion by 2034, increasing from USD 0.63 trillion in 2024. Europe accounted for a 28.96% revenue share (USD 0.49 trillion) in 2024, and Asia Pacific captured a 23.9% revenue share in 2024.
• Pharma Solutions: IFF's Pharma Solutions segment produces cellulosics and seaweed-based pharmaceutical excipients, as well as specialty excipients and active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) for the pharmaceutical industry.
  • The global pharmaceutical excipients market size was estimated at USD 8.7 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach USD 14.1 billion by 2032, growing at a CAGR of 6.2%.
  • North America held the largest market share for pharmaceutical excipients in 2023.

1. Innovation and New Product Development: IFF is expected to drive future revenue growth through continued investments in research and development (R&D), including the development of new molecules in its Scent segment and strengthening its overall R&D and commercial capabilities. These investments are anticipated to lead to new product launches and enhance the impact of commercial and R&D pipelines, with increasing value expected in 2026 and full benefits in 2027.
2. Strategic Portfolio Optimization and Reinvestment: The company's strategic divestitures, such as the Pharma Solutions and Nitrocellulose businesses, aim to reduce leverage and solidify IFF's financial position, enabling reinvestment in core, higher-growth areas. This focused portfolio approach is expected to unlock the full potential of its remaining segments and drive sustained growth by concentrating resources on profitable opportunities.
3. Growth in Key Segments: IFF anticipates continued strong demand and market penetration in its core Scent, Taste (Nourish), and Health & Biosciences segments. Recent performance indicates robust growth in Scent, particularly Fine Fragrance, and solid commercial performance in Taste, especially in regions like Latin America and EMEA. These segments are expected to be key contributors to overall revenue expansion.
4. Global Footprint Expansion and Emerging Market Penetration: IFF is expanding its global footprint, as evidenced by new centers in locations like Dubai, and is actively pursuing opportunities in emerging markets. Analysts highlight that emerging markets are expected to unlock new revenue streams for IFF, contributing to broader geographical sales growth.

Share Repurchases

• International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF) announced a new $500 million share repurchase program on August 5, 2025.
• This authorization is part of the company's balanced capital allocation strategy and reflects confidence in its long-term value.

Share Issuance

• IFF's shares outstanding for the quarter ending June 30, 2025, were 257 million, representing a 0.39% increase year-over-year.
• In 2024, an additional 6,900,000 shares were authorized for issuance under the Amended and Restated 2021 Stock Award and Incentive Plan, bringing the total authorized for issuance to 9,190,000 shares.

Outbound Investments

• IFF completed the divestiture of its Pharma Solutions business unit to Roquette for $2.85 billion on May 1, 2025.
• The company also announced the expected divestiture of its soy crush, concentrates, and lecithin business by year-end 2025, which generated approximately $240 million in revenue in 2024.
• In 2021, IFF completed a $26.2 billion megamerger with DuPont Nutrition & Biosciences.
• IFF acquired Health Wright Products, a dietary supplement contract manufacturer, in February 2022.

Capital Expenditures

• Capital expenditures for IFF from fiscal years ending December 2020 to 2024 averaged $411 million.
• For the first nine months of 2025, capital expenditures totaled $406 million, or roughly 5% of sales.
• IFF projects capital expenditures at 6% of sales in 2025, reflecting catch-up investments and a focus on R&D, capacity expansion, digital transformation, and growth projects in emerging markets.