Fragrance vs. Flavor

Posted: July 17, 2007

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Until the flood of European Union legislation, the fragrance industry, like the personal care industry, was self-regulating; this occurred through the joint efforts of these two organizations--RIFM and IFRA. Now they are partly scientific and partly involved in interfacing with various governmental agencies.

Flavor ingredients might be defined as anything with a Food and Extracts Manufacturers Association (FEMA) number--similar to the International Nomenclature Cosmetic Ingredient (INCI) name in personal care. It is like saying that a word is anything found in a dictionary.

All this flavor and fragrance information is gathered by Allured Publishing Corp. in the annual Flavor and Fragrance Materials (FFM) guide, which is the essential resource for the flavor and fragrance industry. This is comparable to the Cosmetic Bench Reference (CBR) directory of cosmetic raw materials, also produced by Allured.