One year after announcing the acquisition of French-based company Expressions Parfumées, the perfume and aroma giant continues expanding its capabilities in natural ingredients for fragrances.

Natural ingredients and aromatherapy

“Acquiring Albert Vieille will fit nicely with our 2020 strategy to enrich Givaudan’s palette with novel in-house natural ingredients that our perfumers will use to offer best quality and creative solutions to our customers. This acquisition will also allow us to enter the market of essential oils for aromatherapy, which will contribute to our 2020 strategy for ‘health and well-being’. It is another step in reinforcing our presence in Grasse, where the perfumery know-how has recently been awarded World Heritage Status by UNESCO,” said Gilles Andrier, CEO of Givaudan.

With its origins dating back to 1920, and with more than 50 employees, Albert Vieille is based close to Grasse, in France, and has a manufacturing facility in Spain, with its products sold globally through a network of distributors. They source their raw materials across the world, where fragrant crops are harvested and have developed over many years strong capabilities in natural ingredients sourcing and processing.

The company’s know-how is well recognised in the realm of aromatic plants and specialises in 100% pure essential oils and speciality natural ingredients used for the formulation of perfumes and aromatherapy products.

Albert Vieille’s business would have represented approximately EUR 30 million of incremental sales to Givaudan’s results in 2017 on a proforma basis.

“Albert Vieille will bring to Givaudan the expertise to further develop and vertically integrate our natural capabilities. We will combine our existing know-how with those of Albert Vieille to meet the needs of our customers who are facing an increasing demand from consumers for more natural and sustainable fragranced products,” added Maurizio Volpi, President of Givaudan’s Fragrance Division.

The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2019. Terms of the deal have not be disclosed.