Flavours and fragrances: Correlation
Prices it moves with, and why
Flavours and fragrances blend natural extracts, such as citrus oils, mint and spices, with synthetic aroma chemicals. A few large houses sell custom formulas on long contracts, so prices are sticky and reflect value to brands more than raw material costs.
Proxy US PPI: flavoring extracts, emulsions and food colorings index (BLS base period =100) · monthly, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026There is no free public price for flavours and fragrances itself, so this tab uses the closest public series as a stand-in. Read the numbers as an indication, not as the price of this exact item.
What its price moves with
Selected linkFlavours and fragrances and Pepper & spices
Monthly changes -0.01 little or none correlation 12-month changes -0.17 little or none correlation Last 5 years -0.39 monthly changes Lead or lag none No clear lead or lag Price function, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026 Flavours and fragrances ≈ 0.00961 × (Pepper & spices)1.86 R² 0.85 On this fit, a 10% higher pepper & spices price goes with a 19.4% higher flavours and fragrances price over the long run. Units: index (BLS base period =100) and index, BLS base period.Chart: Flavours and fragrances and Pepper & spices prices rebased to 100 at Jan 2006, log scale
Both prices rebased to 100 at Jan 2006, on a log scale so equal percentage moves look the same size.Chart: Flavours and fragrances price against Pepper & spices price, monthly, log scales, with fitted line
Each dot is one month; paler dots are older (2006), darker dots recent (2026); the ringed dot is the latest month. The dashed line is the fitted price function. Both axes are logarithmic.Spice oils and oleoresins, a field where India leads, supply flavour notes for foods and drinks. Against the spices proxy, monthly moves correlate at -0.01, as crop-driven spice prices are smoothed out by contract pricing of flavour blends.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsOrange oil, a by-product of juice making, is a key ingredient in drink flavours and fragrances. Orange prices are driven by Brazilian and US crops and disease, and correlate at -0.06 monthly with the proxy, as citrus oil is a small cost in blends.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsSynthetic vanillin and many other aroma chemicals come from guaiacol and other phenol derivatives. The data show little link: monthly moves correlate at -0.01 and yearly at -0.04, since aroma chemicals are a small part of formula value.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsMany synthetic aroma chemicals derive ultimately from petrochemicals or turpentine, but their value is far above feedstock cost. Monthly moves correlate at 0.00 and yearly at 0.04, so oil has almost no visible effect.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsFlavours, colours, emulsifiers and preservatives are sold to the same food and drink makers and move with processed food demand. Food additives have no public series here, so the link is shown as text only.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.How to read these numbers
Correlation of monthly changes (the number in the coloured pill) compares how much each price moved, month by month, since 2006 or the first month both series exist. It runs from −1 to +1: near +1 the two usually rise and fall in the same months, near 0 there is no link, and a negative number means they tend to move in opposite directions. Above 0.7 is strong, 0.4 to 0.7 moderate, 0.2 to 0.4 weak.
12-month changes compare year-on-year moves, which shows whether two prices share the same cycles even when the month-to-month noise differs.
Price function is a straight-line fit of the two prices on logarithmic scales: price ≈ k × (partner price)β. β is how much this price moves, in per cent, for a 1% move in the partner over the whole period, and R² is the share of the variation the fit explains. Two prices that both drift up with inflation can fit well without any real link, so read it together with the monthly correlation.
Lead or lag checks whether the monthly correlation is clearly higher when one price is shifted by 1 to 6 months.
Correlation is not cause. The reasons on each card explain the economic link; the numbers show how strongly it has shown up in prices. Proxy series are US producer price indexes or related prices and can blur the real link.
Data: World Bank Commodity Price Data (Pink Sheet), October 2026; US Bureau of Labor Statistics producer price indexes, IMF primary commodity prices and US EIA prices via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, retrieved November 2026. Calculations by this site.