Food Ingredient Solutions
Food Ingredient Solutions
Food Ingredient Solutions
Food Ingredient Solutions
Food Service Solutions
Food Ingredient Solutions
Food Ingredient Solutions
Taste Solutions
Food Ingredient Solutions
Taste Solutions
What We Do
PIZZA INGREDIENTS
SAUCES & DRESSINGS
SAUCES & DRESSINGS
Customized Tomato and Topping Solutions
SAUCES & DRESSINGS
SAUCES & DRESSINGS
SAUCES & DRESSINGS
Sauces , Mayonnaise and Relish
BEVERAGE SOLUTIONS
SAUCES & DRESSINGS
BEVERAGE SOLUTIONS
Powdered Beverage Solutions
BAKERY SOLUTIONS
HERBS,SPICES & SEASONINGS
BEVERAGE SOLUTIONS
High Quality Tortilla Wraps and Pita Bread Solutions
HERBS,SPICES & SEASONINGS
HERBS,SPICES & SEASONINGS
HERBS,SPICES & SEASONINGS
High Quality Raw Materials for your consistent quality
CUSTOM MANUFACTURE
HERBS,SPICES & SEASONINGS
HERBS,SPICES & SEASONINGS
Custom Manufacture and Packaging Solutions.
About Us - OUR STORY
With over 65 years of combined experience in the South African and African - Food Manufacturing and Food Ingredient Businesses...
We are both Food Technologists with extensive Managerial and Technical knowledge on Food Ingredients, Flavours, Ingredient Manufacturing, Product Development, Food Systems, Food Safety and Food Quality (FSSC 22000 and BRC) Systems.
Our experience covers a multitude of business operations in Finance, Supply Chain, Procurement, Sales and Marketing, Research and Development, Manufacturing and Human Resources.
We are passionate about doing business the right way...
Excellence in all that we do,
Service you can rely on and
Integrity you can trust.
CHRIS YOUNG
The end of the beginning...
In 2013 my pet project of exactly 18 years, Jannderee, was sold to Frutarom, the global flavour business. Frutarom were buying everything flavour related in sight in its efforts to become one of the largest global flavour businesses. My equity partners wanted to exit.....I had no choice.
Lets do something ...
To retain a purpose at the age of 48, the Inno-tivity business idea was born on a flight back from London to Johannesburg after Tracey and I wanted to set up a flavour business in the UK. My five year restraint (which ended in May 2018) meant I could not touch any flavour business in Africa at all.
On the flight home, I decided that if I was to loose money it would be in South African Rands and not British pounds with an exchange rate of 23 to 1 at the time.
After networking with people that knew us intimately we formulated some solutions and consulted on various new projects which allowed us to cover our initial costs. In November 2014 Inno-tivity started trading.
The perfect grounding in Family Politics...
In 1995, I made the fateful mistake of leaving the largest global flavor business, International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF) to join a small growing flavour business of Jannderee. Leaving the best company I had ever worked for the opportunity to have a share in a business, I had no idea what I was in for.
That said it was the perfect grounding in family politics, multi-tasking and hard work. I learnt in the period of a year, how to make flavours and hundreds of samples, run production and procurement, manage a unionised staff, physically deliver product, manage clients and work with money and the dreaded cash-flow.
Two years later we bought out the owners with the help of a private equity company Rand Merchant Bank (RMB Corvest). 18 years of some of the hardest years of my life, over which we converted an informal business into a well oiled machine of systems and quality on a 6000 square meter site, which allowed us to supply almost every multinational company operating in South Africa at the time.
I had an amazing team of young, passionate, hard working managers and staff.
Leaving...
I knew that the sale of the business would be hard on everybody. Little did I know that Tracey would be the first to leave....I left three days later at the end of January 2014.
TRACEY SMORENBURG
Having qualified many years ago with a National Higher Diploma in Food Technology, my journey in the food industry started out in the quality and technical field in the spice industry.
After getting my stripes in the meat industry, it was time for a change and I moved into sales for the flavour industry and then into the food service market.
The bulk of my career was spent at Jannderee where I joined Chris in a dynamic environment of flavour manufacturing. With much sweat and tears, we became a formidable local flavour company. After moving through the ranks and getting a marketing qualification, I eventually became Sales and Marketing Director. Then the unimaginable happened, Chris sold the business and with it the best job I’d ever had.
It took me a few months (or is it years) to forgive Chris for selling my dream job but we were destined for better things – Inno-tivity. The opportunity to create your own future is something that doesn’t happen to many people. And so the fun started with deciding on a name and logo, implementing systems and getting the first big deal. We may not be the biggest player in the industry (yet!) but we are passionate about creating a best in class business that offers our clients unrivaled quality, service and value.
this is just the beginning ....