Fruity, berry-scented body care, home fragrance, and household cleaning products are some of the most popular in the market – but did you know that that Monument may have produced your favorite product’s fragrance?

How did this come to be? In July 2018, BASF approached the Monument Custom Manufacturing team in Kallo about a new custom manufacturing opportunity. The BASF team had done significant development work with an innovative new fragrance molecule called Velberry™ and was seeking a toller to scale up production from a bench formulation to full-scale production.

“We pride ourselves on the strength of our networks, which have been built over time through a combination of trust, knowledge, and a demonstrated ability to solve challenges,” said Peter Hellemans, Sales Director for Custom Manufacturing in Kallo. “We have long-standing relationships with various businesses in BASF and were pleased to have this particular opportunity come from an existing customer’s referral to a colleague in another division.”

Although the referral was an advantage, the team still had to earn the confidence of the new customer. “Fragrance is essential to brand owners because it’s a way of differentiating their products from the competition and often drives consumers’ purchasing decisions,” explained Sofie De Moor, who led the Velberry project for Monument. BASF’s product site, which looks delicious and refreshing, describes Velberry as a “fresh, sweet, fruity-raspberry aroma” that can be used as a building block to incorporate other fragrances into a formulation for further customization.

“Our R&D team immediately saw the potential to optimize the raw materials used, leading to increased yield, reduced creation of by-products during production, and improvements to the overall economics of the project,” said Sofie. “These benefits, plus our ability to produce high-quality samples that met stringent requirements, helped convince BASF that we were the right partner for this project.” 

When asked if any particular colleagues should be recognized for their work on the project, Peter and Sofie agreed this was a collaborative effort involving multiple functions:

• The R&DandProcess Development teams performed trials and translated BASF’s formulation to a process with significant advantages to support successful upscaling.
• The Operationsteam executed a successful trial despite the challenges associated with the year-end period.
• The Quality Control lab, Process Engineering, and Maintenance organizations ensured the project could be executed with the existing units in the plant.
• The work of the Quality Assurance team was critical because fragrances for personal care applications are highly regulated and often require Kosher and Halal certifications.
• The EH&S and Supply Chain teams contributed to the success of the project by ensuring qualification by the supplier to handle the hazardous raw material.

The Kallo team’s thoroughness and attention to detail did not go unnoticed by BASF. “After an extensive quality audit, the auditor not only approved our processes, but also said she would be willing to share her report with other BASF divisions as a recommendation to work with Monument – which was very rewarding,” said Sofie.

"Thanks to the solution-oriented and agile support from the Monument team, we were able to launch VelberryTM – a new-to-the-world fragrance ingredient. A big thank you to the team for this trustful cooperation," said Silke Weyland, Global Launch Management at BASF Aroma Ingredients.

“We are proud to have demonstrated our ability to provide value as a custom manufacturer, especially with a customer with standards as high as BASF’s,” said Peter. “We look forward to the opportunity to grow our network within other divisions based on the success of this project.”

™ Velberry is a trademark of BASF