2.4 Industrial Applications and ’Natural‘ certification as driving force of bio-based approaches
Lately, there has been an increasing call for the sustainability in industry, especially in food for daily consumption and healthy food. The global market for the flavor and fragrance industry has tripled since the beginning of the 21st century. According to a new market research study, this industry will grow at a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of approximately 3.1% over the next five years, reaching US$ 30.5 billion in 2024 (US$ 25.5 billion in 2019). In addition to the CAGR of 3.1%, the natural and organic flavors sector is growing much faster, with an average annual growth rate of 5.7% to US$ 11 billion in 2026 from US$ 6.8 billion in 2019 [35]. This growth is mainly derived due to the global pressure for the use of flavors in food production, triggered by customer’s demand as well as the increasing cost efficiency through technological progress and the concomitant possibility to declare products as natural.
The European regulation on flavors (EEC No 1334/2008) defines in article 3 (2) c): “Natural flavoring substance shall mean a flavoring substance obtained by appropriate physical, enzymatic or microbiological processes from material of vegetable, animal or microbiological origin either in the raw state or after processing for human consumption by one or more of the traditional food preparation processes”.
To the best of our knowledge, no biotechnological syntheses for industrial production of alkylated pyrazine derivatives, with the declaration natural, have currently been registered. Thus, extraction from natural sources is the only access to natural pyrazines to this end.