Hugo Bovill is a convert to the organic movement. He told attendees at the 2007 NAFFS Convention that he initially resisted employing resources against organic products but has grown to be a believer. He said if someone told him a few years ago that he would be speaking to a group about organics, he would never have believed it. “We started looking seriously at organic oils, which became a life-changing experience,” Bovill said.

“So organic, what’s it mean? It’s not a science. It’s an ethos,” he said. “It doesn’t mean slowly grown without pesticides or artificial fertilizers. I’ve heard people mention carbon footprint and packaging. There are no permanent rules. It’s consumer-driven and it’s so ever-changing.”

Organic suppliers, he said, have traditionally been “tree-huggers” – not attracted by money. Therefore, unconventional but long-term, true relationships are key to an organic supply chain. “Therefore, there is no quick way into organics,” Bovill said.

The change from conventional farming to organic farming itself takes some change and some time, Bovill said. “After three years of not being treated with chemicals or fertilizers, the land can become organically certified. During the three years, there can be a market for ‘in-conversion’ essential oils,” he said, noting that even after three years there may still be residues present in the oil, whether distilled or cold-pressed.

Supply, he said, is the No. 1 organic issue. “Treatt decided that the best way to manage the supply issue was to participate in the growing and production,” Bovill said. “We met some organic believers who had moved into essential oils and vegetable seeds.” That led to Treatt’s relationship with Earthoil, a grower-based production and marketing organization specializing in the sourcing and supplying of certified organic essential oils and seed oils.

“Now, certification…this is where I began to get really confused and learned words like ‘equivalence’ because if something’s NOP that doesn’t mean it’s EEC. If it’s EEC, it doesn’t mean it’s NOP. The Soil Association is one of our many certifiers. [They] have different standards. And theirs are higher than other people’s standards. And people are saying, we don’t want it to be like the kosher wars of the 70s. It’s going to be because they’re going to keep changing. This is a consumer-driven movement.”

He said Treatt has its own certification officer who has worked with the Saul Association for 8 years. “He manages all our relationships and he sets up groups of farmers in India where we have a few hundred farmers and ensures that each one is policing the other farmer. I think we’re probably unique in the flavor and fragrance industry that we have this, somebody who really understands the organic paper trail that’s required. He’s also on the Fair Trade Committee in Europe. And Fair Trade is becoming an increasingly important issue in commodities,” Bovill said.

“Now in England, where I live, there is a question that if something is organic and is air-freighted, which many of our vegetables are from west and east Africa into England, that it will lose its organic status. And for the poor farmers in Ghana and Kenya, that was something very frightening that that would happen. But people want to think local and have local produce. And the consumer wants to know how the goods got there. So there has been a debate going on within the UK and the organic certifiers as to what will happen. And it seems likely that any product that is air-freighted will have a different sticker, a different label, to show that it’s been air-freighted. So there are going to be different grades of organic produce. That’s an example that the rules are ever-changing,” he said. While it’s important to know what’s in a product and where it’s from, Bovill said there has to be some compromise. “Many organic products need natural flavors which may not be organic because to make an organic meat flavor is currently not possible. But organic orange flavors weren’t possible before but now they are,” he said.

“And certainly I can tell you it’s not easy having two different certifiers with different cleaning regimes and trying to keep the plant up to both standards, U.S. and European,” he added.

“So what can a flavor house use for a 100% certified organic? Well, firstly, patience and new flexible mind-set. You’re not going to have fixed rules. You need an employee believer. That to me is the most important.”

“You can use organic essential oils, organic juices, organic alcohol extracts (which are similar to oleoresins), CO2 extracts of organic biomass—and we’re getting close to the commercial—and Eartholates,” he said. Eartholates are produced by separating the large number of individual components in essential oils by selective distillation (fractionation) of the oils in such a way that the individual components are isolated, while retaining their organic character.

Organic Vs. Organic
“So in this world of organic, Treatt believes there are two types,” Bovill said. “There’s the WalMart and there’s the tree-hugging.” He said issues surrounding benzaldehyde demonstrate the differences between the two. “Natural benzaldehyde ex Cassia, I don’t believe, will ever be organic, but it can be organic-compliant. But if you can have natural benzaldehyde from apricot stone fruits, which is 100% organic, which would you want to use? If you’re an organic consumer, which would you want in your products? And to me that’s an example of where organic and natural, there’s going to be some issue going forward.”

Bovill said the food industry isn’t the only market for organic products. “Health and beauty, just to touch on the fragrance side, is fairly unregulated at the moment in the U.S. but the standards are coming out, I believe, early next year. But some tree-hugging organic believers in cosmetic companies won’t use Ylang 2 or Ylang 3. They’ll only use ylang complete. They don’t want to use any fractions. The oil must be whole or complete to be the true, natural oil.”

Bovill then discussed the differences between organic and conventional essential oils. “Certainly the organic is definitely cleaner in terms of pesticides, agricultural residues,” he said, referring to the samples of grapefruit oil being passed around the room. He said it was even easier to detect a difference between the two samples of peppermint oil that were distributed. He said organic oils can vary somewhat because they’re low in menthol. “It’s funny, he said, that the conventional material, where blending is more accepted, can meet American standards. But to get organic piperita into the U.S., it’s not going to meet normal U.S. standards. It just doesn’t work that way. But the Indians can make conventional meet the standards. They’re clever.

“But certainly if you want pure oil, organic is the way to go. And we have been really checking and looking at essential oils which are claimed to be organic. And I think we’ve only found one or two things that really were obviously not truly organic. Some are organic and they have pesticides and different synthetics there. But they are organic.”

Bovill reiterated an earlier point about the relationships that are often needed in production of organic product. “So, this where I need to thank you U.S. taxpayers because on Mt. Kenya with 240 small organic growers, and thanks to USAID, we’ve managed to have them all certified and also certified in a type of Fair Trade for a retail company. We have another 7,000 small growers who hopefully, with the help of your money, will become organic. We’ve just planted 2 million tea trees there on Mt. Kenya. And I can tell you 2 million seedlings delivered by bicycle is a lot of work. But it’s done. And we’re now moving into some seed crops as well for the cosmetic world. Without the funding given by organizations such as USAID, it could never have happened. And hopefully we can make a difference to these farmers.

“And what’s interesting is, the end customer wants his name up over the farms, which are tiny, half an acre. He wants his name on these boards. So we don’t think he’s going to want to change suppliers very quickly. And next year they’re flying out journalists from lots of different magazines out to Mt. Kenya. So they’re going to have to work with us for the long term because the journalists are going to want to come back, we think, in the future.”

Bovill turned his attention to the future. “There’s going to be 100-percent organic flavors. There might not be organic meat flavors…yet. But certainly organic citrus, organic mint. There’s going to be more. And who knows what might come out of a sugar factory as a by-product, which is organic. So if customers want it, it’s happening.”