“Grasse is the Mecca of perfumery. You can’t be taken critically on this business with no presence right here. In Madagascar, there are huge plantations, however Grasse is the place the experience and manufacturing know-how are discovered,” says Alexandrine Demachy, president of SFA-Neroli.
After many years of declining manufacturing and fading status, Grasse has efficiently reinvented itself by specializing in high quality and, above all, by capitalizing on its centuries-old craftsmanship. Rising shopper demand for authenticity and pure components has helped persuade the perfume business’s main gamers that town is as soon as once more a vital vacation spot.
Desperate to help each their perfumers and their shoppers, main perfume homes have invested closely in native estates, reworking them into analysis and innovation hubs in addition to prestigious showcases for guests. Following the opening of Louis Vuitton’s Les Fontaines Parfumées inventive heart in 2016, Lancôme established its Domaine de la Rose in 2023, a seven-hectare property devoted to rose cultivation.
In 2020, the Dutch-Swiss group dsm-firmenich, which employs round 30,000 individuals worldwide, inaugurated Villa Botanica, an olfactory haven overlooking each Grasse and the Bay of Cannes. Surrounded by citrus groves, jasmine, verbena, roses, lavender, iris, and unique species, the property serves as a vacation spot the place the corporate hosts key shoppers and the place perfumers from Paris, New York, São Paulo, and Dubai collect to discover improvements, and draw inspiration from the area’s botanical heritage.
“On this business, the true asset is expertise. And also you don’t appeal to perfumers to Holzminden,” emphasizes Jean-Yves Parisot, president of Symrise, referring to the central German city the place the perfume and taste group is headquartered. In 2022, Symrise strengthened its foothold in Grasse by buying and combining the native corporations SFA and Neroli, earlier than inaugurating a brand new headquarters within the metropolis final 12 months.
The momentum exhibits no signal of slowing. Following the two-day Worldwide Exhibition of Uncooked Supplies for Perfumery (SIMPPAR), the American group Worldwide Flavors & Fragrances (IFF) inaugurated its Domaine des Naturels on 28 Could, a area designed as an open-air laboratory. The group additionally desires to make Grasse a hub of creation and innovation.
The rose struggle
Though the area now accounts for less than a small share of fragrant plant cultivation, it has preserved a outstanding focus of experience in extraction, processing, and formulation, cementing its standing as a world hub for pure perfume components. In line with Prodarom, the French affiliation representing producers of fragrant uncooked supplies, the fragrance business nonetheless employs round 4,600 individuals in Grasse.
Town’s resurgence has been pushed by a number of elements: the continued dedication of main luxurious homes resembling Dior and Chanel; the preservation of centuries-old know-how, acknowledged by the inscription of Grasse’s perfume-related experience on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage checklist in 2018; and sustained help from native authorities, notably beneath the management of Jérôme Viaud, who has served as mayor since 2014.
In 2018, the municipality allotted an extra 70 hectares to the cultivation of fragrant vegetation, together with rose, jasmine, tuberose, and mimosa. Manufacturing of centifolia roses — also called Could roses, a signature Grasse selection whose scent at present fills the area — has since rebounded to round 120 tons per 12 months.
The Grasse area has made fairly a comeback! For a number of many years, mounting land stress alongside the French Riviera, the rise of artificial options, and rising competitors from different areas severely weakened the native business. Flower cultivation collapsed, and plenty of worldwide corporations regularly withdrew from the world.
“Within the Nineteen Eighties and Nineteen Nineties, nothing was assured,” acknowledges Julien Maubert, head of the fragrance division at Robertet, one of many main Grasse-based teams alongside Mane.
The manufacturing of centifolia roses, which reached round 3,000 tons per 12 months at first of the twentieth century, had fallen to a historic low of 59 tons in 2011, just about supplanted by the damascena, or Damask rose, mass-produced in Turkey, Bulgaria, and Morocco. Each are related, with their yellow facilities and ruffled pink petals. However “the centifolia has a floral contact and a vegetal impact, with a touch of spice. The damascena is extra honeyed, nearly animalic, and liqueur-like,” explains Fabrice Pellegrin, perfumer at dsm-firmenich.
For Dior and Chanel, for which centifolia rose stays a cornerstone of their historic fragrances, substituting it with damascena was by no means an possibility. Main producers have adopted go well with: dsm-firmenich has strengthened its presence within the area with a pure components growth facility using round 250 individuals; IFF has practically doubled the dimensions of its Grasse headquarters final 12 months; and the Swiss group Givaudan has introduced the creation of a multi-hectare innovation heart.
Constructing on this momentum, town goals to consolidate its place as a world hub for perfumery. Mayor Jérôme Viaud has partnered with the Messe Frankfurt group — organizer of main business occasions resembling Beautyworld Center East in Dubai — to launch a brand new initiative: the Beautyworld Summit. Scheduled for 10–11 Could 2027, this two-day worldwide gathering will carry collectively key perfume business stakeholders in Grasse for discussions and exchanges. “It is not going to be an occasion imposed on the area, however one co-created regionally. What is going to make the distinction tomorrow is above all of the authenticity, excellence, and id that our area is ready to embody,” the mayor mentioned.
