The owner-operated family business esarom is recognized far beyond the borders of Austria as a leading supplier of flavouring ingredients for the nutrition and food industry and for beverage manufacturers around the world. The flavouring specialist‘s primary sales and distribution focus is on Central and Eastern Europe.
By Alfons Strohmaier
Prior to speaking with Stephan Mölls, one question in particular stuck out: How do you manage as a family business to assert your market position in the face of constant concentration in the industry, as well as among your competitors? Mr Mölls, a certified engineer and the Managing Director and partner of esarom GmbH in Oberrohrbach, Austria, addressed three issues above all in his answer: network, service, and trust. “We prefer to refer to partners rather than customers. Our vision is to be a partner for the best possible solutions in the food products and beverages industry”, he emphasizes. This is reflected in the company’s current slogan: esarom – Your Partner in Taste.
“We believe in cooperation and mutual success. In this partnership, we are an advisor and supplier for good taste and innovation,” says Mr Mölls. For this to work well, a second factor is equally decisive in the company‘s long years of success: the esarom team. The owner-operated family company has a staff of 350 employees at its two locations in Lower Austria and six own distribution subsidiaries.
The product portfolio comprises flavours, distillates, extracts, dyes, vitamin and mineral mixtures, basic beverage components and “everything that makes food products valuable”, according to company information. esarom is recognized far beyond Austria’s borders as a leading supplier operation of flavouring ingredients for beverage manufacturers and for the nutrition and luxury goods industry. In line with this, esarom has increasingly engaged with the confectionery industry.
Annually, esarom produces in excess of 10,000 t of basic taste materials, flavours and essences primarily for alcohol-free beverages, sweets and baked goods, ice cream and other dairy products. The company has a large international network characterised by its own subsidiaries and distribution partners of many years in Poland, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Russia, the Ukraine, Turkey, Kazakhstan and Dubai. Its numerous application centres keep the company close to the customer. “Taste differs locally, so it is important to know the taste preferences and to test out corresponding applications on-site”, explains Mr Mölls. The company’s export share is currently 80 %, with the core export markets located in Central and Eastern Europe, along with other important countries in the Middle East and in Northern and Western Africa.
The company head believes, “In order to fulfil our part in the cooperation with our customers, we need committed, skilled employees with a passion for good taste”. A symbol of this appreciation is the investment of EUR 9 m the company put into its “House of Taste” at its second location in Rückersdorf. Since 2005, this has been the site of logistics and sales (2012) centre, and since 2017 of its Research & Development Department.
In light of the fact that product life cycles are becoming ever-shorter and the markets ever-more volatile, the flexibility and decisiveness of this medium-sized family business is of great importance. “Our business environment is permanently changing, and we change along with it – while retaining our traditional values that our customers build upon and can rely on”, says Mr Mölls, underscoring esarom‘s position as an expert and innovative partner in the network. “Over the years we’ve seen again and again that the supplier industry works proactively on new developments and new product possibilities for the manufacturers. But on this point, we need the trust of our industry partners, because we also want to understand their processes in technological terms in order to be able to perfectly do our part for the solution of the manufacturer‘s problem or for their new product”.
One example of the innovative power as well as the network concept is the Connect project. Together with nine medium-sized “champions” from all areas of the supplier chain for the confectionery industry and the scientific world, a "revolutionary" new process for the manufacture of three-dimensional fruit gums was developed within a period of three years. Mr Mölls reports that the response was massive. “Some 750 participants from roughly 400 confectionery producers from around the world took part in our online event. This fact and the current high demand for the implementation of this process confirm for us that we took
the right steps here. We are especially pleased that as a result each company expanded its knowledge, and that we can subsequently offer flavours with a three-dimensional effect for the optimum ‘multi-dimensional taste experience’,” explains the manager.
Yet another successful model is the 3D Live Program, which uses a 3D printing process to produce individual product forms. “With a wide variety of industrial basic recipes, we can use special equipment to develop products with and for our customers and manufacture them in small quantities. This makes live development possible, together with our customer and supplier partners, and that makes development efficient”, says Mr Mölls confidently.
All this results in the in-house production at esarom of new products such as pralines, fruit gums, gelees, hard candies, soft caramels, fondants, toffees and many more. In the baked goods sector, esarom also offers flavourings for grease and fruit fillings, thermostable baking flavourings, thermostable fruit fillings, coatings or chocolate creams for biscuits, cookies, wafers, muffins and other baked goods. Laboratory pilot systems including lab casting machinery at the House of Taste are on hand for this work. Additionally, there is ample space for communication with the project overseers from the confectionery and baked goods industry. Aside from live development, this also encompasses sensory training, creative workshops and upscaling to the service performances of this successful flavouring specialist from the Lower Austrian “Weinviertel” region.
