Sniffing big business

Want to know about fragrances that can enhance efficiency at the work place? Wish to identify the chemical in your perfume that gives you an allergy?

Come April and you may get a chance to attend a crash course on industrial perfumery to help answer your questions. Sanganeria Foundation for Health & Education, a body set up by the Rs 58-crore fragrance formulation company, Ultra International Ltd, is organising a five-day course in perfumery in Delhi.

The course will focus on the aroma trade industry "" in India and globally, and teach you to get creative in making your own perfume.

Ultra International, which exports essential oils and makes fragrances and flavours, boasts of 500 clients including Thailand-based spa company The Banyan Tree, a multinational beverage company, baby soaps and global perfume brands.

The company has also created scents for some of India's popular hair oil, shampoo and deodorant brands. The Delhi-based company has a factory in Sahibabad and stocks 500 varieties of essential oils, 300 kinds of aroma chemicals as well as perfumery compounds, and claims to generate at least 50 fragrance and flavour formulations a day.

According to Sant Sanganeria, director of Sanganeria Foundation, the perfumery course is targeted at professionals who want to "add skills" to their portfolio. "It could help people applying for a job to the cosmetic industry or anyone who's interested in launching a personal care products range," he says.

"For those not able to afford a one-year long course at a foreign university, the course will offer basic knowledge about the industry," adds Ravi Sanganeria, the company's director.

The short course, which is being organised in association with the University of Plymouth, will cost a whopping Rs 49,000, or roughly 10,000 a day. But Ravi Sanganeria says that a similar course abroad would cost over Rs 1 lakh.

He adds that one would get a full view of how competitive the industry is and learn about global trends in this field. "So far, no regular courses are being offered in Indian universities," he says.

The course will be conducted by a high-profile team: Tony Curtis, senior lecturer in marketing and perfumery at the University of Plymouth, and fragrance consultants John Ayres and Joanna Norman.

To be sure, fragrance and flavour formulations is a Rs 5,000 crore industry as every company right from a rubber manufacturer to paints, soap and ice-cream maker uses perfumes and flavours to mask the smell of its products.

About 90 per cent of the market, growing at the rate of 5-10 per cent per annum, is in the unorganised sector. Of this, 25 per cent of the market is captured by the gutka and paan masala makers.

"A product may have a smell or no smell, but everyone wants a good scent. Which is why perfumery is a secretive business as well as lucrative," says S Sanganeria.

In the future, the company plans to set up a modern R&D unit for flavours in Sahibabad. "It will work on highly technical flavours such as meat, beverages and tobacco," says Sanganeria. The proposed unit, set up at the cost of Rs 2 crore, will be operational by the end of the year.