A company that specialises in plant-based ingredients, Roquette boasts €3.2bn in sales and 8300 employees worldwide, and will now be offering personal care and cosmetics ingredients to the industry.
Under its new umbrella Roquette Beauté, the France-headquartered player says it will formulate new specialty ingredient solutions for beauty players, including both active and functional ingredients.
We caught up with the company’s new Vice President Cosmetics Business, Gaetan Borgers, to hear more on the motivation behind Roquette’s entry into the market, and the challenges and opportunities it anticipates.
“We are really committed to what we are doing [in entering the beauty market],” he says. “It’s a key objective for the company.”
Ready to move into beauty
Borgers asserts that Roquette is particularly well-placed to move into cosmetics and personal care, due to its established profile for innovation in both plant-based ingredients and sustainability.
He suggests that the company’s presence across nutrition and pharma means it has a strong awareness of the consumer demands driving the wider consumer goods market today.
“We already touch your life in different ways, in different times during your day, at different points of your life,” Borgers explains, noting that we are seeing a strengthening link across the traditionally more separate consumer goods industries.
“Let’s take for instance the food industry: there is a strong trend for plant-based and bio (organic) ingredients, and this trend is also being seen in the cosmetics industry.”
Innovation: keyword
Borgers explains that Roquette sees the beauty industry as a particularly dynamic industry supported by ‘megatrends’ that offer strong potential, noting: “It’s a challenge of the industry, a good one, that we have to constantly bring innovation to satisfy consumer demands.”
Roquette is up to the challenge, asserts Borgers.
“Our keyword is innovation,” he states. “This is another key thing that we bring to the cosmetics market: the innovation that we have demonstrated in the health and nutrition markets. We have over 80 years of experience in bringing new products to the market.
“What we have done in pharma is very differentiating I think, and we will also do this in cosmetics. A brand new offering with dedicated products for the beauty market.”
Beauté by Roquette® range’s official launch will be taking place at the in-cosmetics Global event in Amsterdam in April.
The company is set to unveil two major developments: according to Borgers, these systems will be plant-based ingredients that together work synergistically, offering unique sensory effects specifically developed for the beauty industry.
“We want to go with speed and efficiency in this market,” concludes Borges. “We will go with organic and inorganic growth. We are really fully committed and will make it a success.”