“I look forward to welcoming members and their partners to this beautiful, historical city with strong global links deriving from its shipping, finance, commerce, arts, culture and tourism sectors.

This year, it will be a celebratory conference, as we mark 40 years since IFEAT’s inception in Kyoto in 1977; the theme will be “Celebrating 40 years of IFEAT”. There is much to celebrate, as our industry has flourished and IFEAT activities continue to expand. As part of the celebrations we shall be looking at “fragrances in antiquity”. The glorious era of Ancient Athens stands roughly halfway in the course of the 40 centuries of documented perfumery. With the unique smells of Greek origin such as labdanum or mastic, our conference will pay special tribute to the on-going discoveries around the fascinating richness of these ancient scents.

Following the success of last year’s Dubai Conference, the order of events at the Athens Conference will be the same as 2016. There will be two days of a formal conference speaker programme with presentations on topical issues for the global essential oils and aroma chemicals trade (Monday 25th and Tuesday 26th September). This will be followed by a two-day Trade Exhibition on Wednesday 27th and Thursday 28th September, as well as private meetings and networking between members. Workshops are being organised for these last two days including the ICATS Intermediate Perfumery Workshop led by Joanna Norman and Special Topics in Flavours and Flavourings led by Michael Zviely.

The Welcome Reception will be held on Sunday 24th September prior to the start of the conference. The annual IFEAT Dinner will be held at The Zappeion Hall on Tuesday 26th September with the Closing Banquet being held at the exquisite beach front Balux Prive on Thursday 28th September.

I am delighted to have a very energetic and competent new IFEAT secretariat working on this year’s IFEAT Conference. I am also very grateful to my organising committee which consists of longstanding members of the IFEAT Executive Committee, who already have form with regard to the organisation of spectacular IFEAT events. Thank you for your time and unwavering support: Kim Bleimann, Michael G Boudjouk, Antonella Corleone, Hussein Fakhry, Csaba Fodor, Jens-Achim Protzen, Ravi Sanganeria, Michael Torre and Stephen Pisano.”
Dominique ROQUES
Chairman of the 2017 Athens Conference, IFEAT