Alix Detilleux, Global Categories Procurement Director for Taste, Nutrition & Health at Symrise, on building the procurement capability at Symrise to help navigate evolving market conditions…
Procurement has always been complex, with professionals juggling multiple threads at once. Within the food and beverage sector, this has traditionally meant managing crop cycles and commodity pricing. In recent years, the challenge has widened, with Procurement teams also navigating market volatility driven by geopolitical events, tariffs, and upstream exposure.
Alix Detilleux, Global Categories Procurement Director for Taste, Nutrition & Health at Symrise, is familiar with managing this volatility. She explains: “It triggered different ways for us to look at the markets to understand what the upstream of our suppliers is, the tariff situation, and the effects of the situation in the Red Sea area.” Just days after our interview, the world felt shockwaves once more, as Israel and the United States initiated a bombing campaign in Iran, leading to a massive escalation of tension in the area. An ‘uncertain market’ is a massive understatement right now for Detilleux and her colleagues and peers.
Symrise is a global supplier of flavours and fragrances, cosmetic basic and active ingredients as well as functional ingredients. Its customers include perfume, cosmetics, food and beverage manufacturers, the pharmaceutical industry and producers of dietary supplements and pet food. With sales of around €4.9 billion in the 2025 financial year, the company is one of the world’s leading providers. The Group, headquartered in Holzminden, Germany, has more than 100 branches in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, Asia, the USA and Latin America.
A new role
Stepping into a newly created role, Detilleux’s first job at Symrise was to build the Global Category Management for raw materials. Previously, Procurement had been handled mostly at the regional level. Her remit included defining the categories and building the team, while supporting a broader transformation of the function.
“About 80% of what we buy is coming from nature,” Detilleux says. “We need to monitor the crop cycle and understand if something is produced in India, whether we can have a backup.” This is why the global perspective is so important. It’s easier to see how an evolving situation in one area could affect the wider business and take action to reduce risk.
“We work with all departments to bring market intelligence and awareness on raw materials impacting our company – I can have in the morning a discussion with Regional Procurement on sourcing, and in the afternoon an interaction with Sales or R&T on cocoa market and our price analysis for the next 6, 12 or 18 months to help them position our technical solutions and create long term value for our customers…”
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