Flavor and fragrance are in nearly everything from food to shampoo, and a New Jersey company plays a key role in creating the building blocks behind those scents and tastes.

Berje Incorporated says it supplies the flavor and fragrance materials that become the ingredients in many well‑known supermarket products. “We are a supplier of flavor and fragrance materials,” says CEO Gillian Bleimann‑Boucard. “Some of your favorite fragrances, shampoos, beverages have rose oil, lavender oil, lime oil.”

Before those scents and flavors end up on shelves, Berje sources natural materials from around the world. Workers extract oils from flowers, fruits and even bark before importing them to the company’s facility in Carteret for refinement.

“There’s rigorous quality control stuff that is necessary to make sure that those products are tested and safe for the final consumer,” explains Bleimann‑Boucard.

With more than 300 essential oils on hand at any time, teams handle a constant flow of raw materials. Forklifts move shipments to a lab where technicians test each material to identify its components and check for flaws. After analysis, the oils head to the production floor.

“Material is being put into those tanks for the blending operation,” says Tom Noesner, vice president of operations. “We’ll make a custom blend. So it could be an orange oil, could be a lemon oil, could be a lime oil.”

For more complex products, operators mix dozens of ingredients to create customized aromatic blends for clients. “Each one of these operators will be mixing upwards of 100 different ingredients to manufacture a fragrance,” Noesner says.

So the next time you sip, bite or even smell something familiar, the foundation may have been made right here in New Jersey at Berje.