Teesside biotech facility will be centre of innovation

Mar 12 2010 by Kelley Price, Evening Gazette

Scent of success

A TEESSIDE flavour and fragrance house will be one of the first companies to scale up its natural green products in CPI’s world-leading biotech facility.

Frutarom, based in Hartlepool and Billingham, wants to be the first company in the world to make high-impact natural aroma-chemicals for food and personal care products.

It was awarded £112,000 from the Government, as one of 19 winning projects for a Government-run competition to develop the techn ology.

The company will team up with the University of Durham’s School of Biology and Biomedical Sciences to take its natural food flavouring products to market.

Frutarom research and development manager, Steven Jackson, said: “CPI’s facility will give us the leg-up we need. Without this win, we wouldn’t have the finance or the equipment to do it ourselves.”

The Israeli company, which employs 90 across two Teesside sites, took over the Hartlepool premises of Oxford Chemicals in a $12m buy-out of the company last January.