Givaudan opens white biotechnology center for sustainable beauty innovation

Givaudan has inaugurated an innovation center to strengthen its R&D capabilities and accelerate the creation of high-precision beauty ingredients. The fragrance and beauty company’s CEO calls the White Biotechnology Innovation Centre (BIC) a milestone in creating sustainable and scientifically supported cosmetic ingredients.

The BIC in Toulouse, France, will feature laboratories that consolidate Givaudan’s expertise in white biotechnology. This technology creates active cosmetic ingredients using microorganisms (fermentation and bioconversion) or enzymes (biocatalysis). 

Fermentation and bioconversion processes are based on sugar transformation, using the local feedstock — wheat and sugar beet — to allow the microorganisms to generate primary or secondary metabolites with cosmetic properties.

The center will include a dedicated fermentation lab and biocatalysis development area. Givaudan says the site can efficiently scale up new scientific concepts and transform them into “next-generation” ingredients. 

The company is developing manufacturing processes that do not rely on traditional chemistry. White biotechnology is touted to enable cosmetic scientists to manufacture hard-to-make molecules.

In cosmetic technology, Givaudan Active Beauty recently released its Unispheres Technology, which uses bead-like particles to encapsulate and deliver an array of pigments or actives into cosmetics.

Global expansion moves

The new site is positioned within Givaudan’s biotechnology innovation ecosystem and will work in synergy with the other centers in Orsay and Pomacle, France.

“This Innovation Centre is designed to foster teamwork and creativity between marketing and R&D. It will allow us to service our customers with original and award-winning innovative ingredient solutions,” says Markus Rassmann, head of Active Beauty at Givaudan.

Gilles Andrier, CEO of Givaudan, adds: “This center reinforces Givaudan’s global footprint, enhancing collaboration across our different sites to co-create the future of beauty, in line with our 2030 strategy.”

In global moves, last month, Givaudan announced the opening of a fragrance and beauty facility in Guangzhou, China, with an investment of CHF 40 million (US$50.2 million). It also acquired a significant stake in Vollmen Fragrances, a Brazilian fragrance house in São Paulo. 

Givaudan Active Beauty also recently expanded its partnership with LBB Specialties to distribute a broader range of its ingredients across the Midwest and the Eastern US.

In other North American moves, the company revealed an intention to acquire Belle Aire Creations, a US-based fragrance house.