GENEVA, March 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Firmenich, the world's largest privately-owned perfume and taste company, today opened its largest flavor manufacturing plant in the world in the Zhangjiagang Free Trade Zone in China. Operating with digitally-advanced manufacturing systems and the highest Quality, Health, Safety, Security and Environmental standards, this state-of-art plant is designed to best meet growing customer demand in China, with increased speed, operational excellence and traceability.

"This significant investment in Zhangjiagang, reinforces our long-term commitment to China, our second largest market worldwide," said Gilbert Ghostine, Firmenich CEO. "This world-class plant massively scales-up our capacity to meet our customers' demand for innovative and fast-to-market taste solutions. I look forward to seeing the Zhangjiagang plant play a central role in our growth journey."

"This digitally-advanced and highly sustainable plant marks a critical milestone on our journey to shaping the factory of the future," said Boet Brinkgreve, Chief Supply Chain Officer, Firmenich. "With a 70% automation rate, this new plant will boost our customer service, without any compromise on quality, safety and environmental performance, which is non-negotiable for us."

Building on Firmenich's recognition as a global sustainability leader from climate to water and forestry management, this new site operates with an optimized environmental footprint. The high-tech facility is designed to enable optimal waste, water, emissions and energy management. Operating with zero waste-to-landfill, the plant is the Company's first zero liquid discharge site which ensures all waste water is purified and recycled at the end of the treatment cycle. Confirmed 100% free of ozone depleting refrigerants, it also has the most advanced integrated air treatment, lighting and building components to optimize energy consumption and recover heat waste.

"We've been working to delight Chinese consumers with our broad range of local flavors in everything from dairy drinks to tea and noodles for many years," said Emmanuel Butstraen, President of Flavors at Firmenich. "This will enable us to produce locally highly differentiating technologies that can meet Chinese consumers' new discerning tastes."

Firmenich has been established in China for over 30 years. The new facility complements the Group's existing manufacturing sites in Shanghai and Kunming and extensive network of commercial facilties from Shanghai and Beijing to Guangzhou.

About Firmenich

Firmenich is the world's largest privately-owned perfume and taste company, founded in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1895. Driven by its purpose to create positive emotions to enhance wellbeing, naturally, Firmenich has designed many of the world's best-known perfumes and tastes, bringing delight to over four billion consumers every day. Renowned for its world-class research and creativity, as well as its leadership in sustainability, each year, Firmenich invests 10% of its turnover in R&D to understand and share the best that nature has to offer responsibly. Firmenich had an annual turnover of 3.7 billion Swiss Francs at end June 2018. More information about Firmenich is available at www.firmenich.com

(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/798187/Firmenich_Logo.jpg)

SOURCE Firmenich