Chemical Conversions of Natural Precursors

13.7 Conclusions

Many products from the flavour industry are primary products from renewable resources or secondary products obtained by chemical conversions of the primary products. In general these secondary products are key flavour chemicals with a high added value. The cost difference between a precursor, the primary product and the flavour chemical can easily amount to a factor 20–1,000, especially when it concerns a natural flavour chemical. A large part of this cost reflects, of course, the efficiency of the reaction, the labour involved and the cost of the other reagents.

Although quite often these flavour chemicals can be prepared from petrochemical sources, renewable resources are preferred by the flavour industry, because access to these renewable resources is very good and already existed when these companies were started. In addition, chemicals from renewable resources are natural, so they can be used in natural flavours and offer the possibility to be used for the production of natural secondary products.