In memory of Frank Fischetti, jr. our dear friend and mentor
We are sadden learning that our friend and mentor Mr. Frank Fischetti, Jr. passed away on Oct. 19, 2025. Frank was not only a highly regarded flavor chemist serving multiple flavor houses in the U.S. for more than 50 years, but also a great teacher who taught many flavor professionals the art of flavor formulation even after he retired.
The Society of Flavor Chemists offered the prestigious Golden Blotter Award to Frank in 2006. Below is cited from the society's website which has a good description of Frank's career and contribution to the U.S. flavor industry.
About the Recipient
Frank Fischetti, Jr.
- Presented by Chairperson, Veronica McBurnie, on Sept 14, 2006 in Newark, NJ
- President, The Society of Flavor Chemists (SFC), 1983-1984
- Food Chemical Committee Chair, The Society of Flavor Chemists (SFC)
- President, Chemical Sources Assoc (CSA)
- VP of Flavor Development, FDO
- VP of Flavor Division, ITC
- VP of Flavors, Globe Extracts
- VP of Creative Flavor Development, Craftmaster
- VP of Flavors, Wynnstarr
Good evening everyone. Thank you all for being here to help celebrate this special occasion as we honor Frank Fischetti with our prestigious Golden Blotter Award. We had planned to present this award at our May meeting, but, unfortunately, our Guest of Honor could not attend. As most of you know, Frank had some health issues at that time. But it looks like he is definitely on the road to recovery. In fact, I understand that you were back to teaching your flavor course at the University of Minnesota just a few weeks ago. That’s great news! As a member of the Historian Committee, I have become the keeper of some of the SFC archives, namely, hundreds of photos and negatives taken over the years. Credit should be given to Al Saldarini for passing these on to us. In this collection, there were many with Frank’s face in them, as you will see. I thought you’d enjoy seeing these. So sit back while you finish your dessert and take a journey back into Frank Fischetti history. Notice the changing fashions and hairstyles. I apologize for the quality since most of them are more than 20 years old.
We definitely had some great times at those President’s receptions. And doesn’t Frank look like he should have been part of some Doo-Wop group in the mid 50’s–or were you? And what about that Leisure Suit? 70-ish? And what’s the story behind the cowboy hat?
Now on to Frank’s career— Frank was discharged from the Army in 1957. With an associate degree in Chemistry, he answered an ad for a chemist in the analytical lab at Dodge & Olcott. Things got a little mixed up and he wound up in production and bulk compounding. But he needed the job having just gotten married. Frank subsequently received his Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry at City College of NY and later did some Post Graduate work at Hunter College. He soon found his niche in the flavor lab and learned flavor chemistry under the guidance of Bob Schinnagle to whom he is eternally grateful. His experience in production also taught him about spray drying and about his favorite topic—emulsions. Frank was at D & O for ten years initially, when he left to go to Warner Jenkinso/7-Up in St. Louis. After two years he decided to come back to the then merged Fritzsche D & O. Earl Merwin has commented that Frank was one of the first technical people to leave Fritzsche on his own accord, asked to come back, and was accepted. Kudos to you, Frank! He worked another 14 years there as V.P. of Flavor Development. Frank became a member of SFC in 1961. It wasn’t long before his passion for this industry showed its colors. In 1968, Frank chaired the Food Chemical Committee of SFC. His idea was to have a list with suppliers of flavor chemicals. He was also influential in the cover design with our logo, as you will see.
This letter, written to Gene Buday in 1968, shows the beginning idea for our logo. Note the last few lines—“The Benzene Ring to indicate Science and Chemistry and the arrangement of the letters to indicate Imagination—our two greatest assets.” The first edition was published in 1968 with the second edition followed in 1971. Soon after that, in 1972, Chemical Sources Association was formed.
Since his days at Fritzsche, Frank has held flavor positions at the following companies: Mero—V.P. of Flavor Division ITC (Ingredients Technology Corporation)—V.P of Flavors Globe Extracts—V.P. of Creative Flavor Development Craftmaster—V.P. of Flavors Wynn Starr—V.P. of Flavors from where he recently retired. Frank has served on the Boards of Both CSA and SFC. He is Past President of SFC 1983-1984, Past President of CSA. He’s chaired many committees of both organizations. I just found out that he was treasurer of SFC in 1973. According to the early minutes, he was asked if he would like to move up to Secretary, but refused due to lack of secretarial help to support him. It seems that he was also a Board member of both CSA & SFC at the same time. How’d you do that? H e is Past Chairman of the Flavor Division of the Agriculture and Food Division of the American Chemical Society. He is a Certified Member of SFC, a Fellow in the British Society of Flavor Chemists, a Professional Member of IFT, a charter member and on the Board of Directors of The Flavor Heritage Society, and a member of our present Historian Committee of SFC.
Early in his career at Fritzsche, Frank got involved with the Center for Professional Advancement, lecturing on Flavors. This was under the guidance of Earl Merwin, who convinced him that he can do this. Dolf De Rovira now heads up this group and Frank is one of the key lecturers. With Frank’s passion for teaching his craft, he continues to lecture on flavors at short coursed given by The Center for Professional Advancement; at The University of Minnesota with Gary Reineccius; at the University of Missouri with Dick Heinze. H e has also given lectures on flavors for the IFT, NAFFS, AACC, to name a few; and at local technical meetings and symposia.
In doing some research for this presentation, I wanted to see what else I could find out about Frank. I decided to surf the web and put Frank Fischetti in the search field. Lots of hits, since I didn’t use quotation marks. On one hit I got “Frank Sinatra and John Fischetti.” Seems there was some kind of Italian connection going on there. So, once I figured out how to search only for Frank Fischetti, I got a lot less hits. The first one was listed in some court news in Brooklyn, NY. ”Four men held charged with possessing policy slips for Italian lotteries. Four men were yesterday held by Magistrate Sabbatino in the Coney Island court in $300 bail each for the Court of Special Sessions. They were taken into custody by patrolmen of Inspector Joseph Thompson’s staff. They were Sebastian Peppi, 53, …Frank Fischetti, 61,…etc.” I knew it couldn’t be our Frank when I saw the date—Court News, 1931—Brooklyn Daily Standard Union. More recently, I came across another Frank Fischetti. To quote and article in a men’s health magazine about how to stay alert while driving: ”Stretch when you stop. Grab a pole about waist high and stand with your feet 18 inches apart. Bring your head between your arms to stretch your upper back. Hold for 20 seconds, says Frank Fischetti, personal trainer for NASCAR driver Mark Martin. Next stand on one leg. Once you’re stable, reach down and touch your toes, with the raised leg going up and straight back behind you. Do 20 to keep your hamstrings and lower back loose. Switch sides and repeat.” Maybe you can incorporate this into your exercise program, Frank. And then there is the article that our own Frank did contribute to—“Food for Thought” published in Fortune magazine in 2003. The article deals with the “Yuck factor” in foods. Frank talked about the beetles that produce carmine color used in some natural food products; L-Cysteine from human hair, and the fecal notes of Skatole used in some flavors as well as in many fragrances. To quote from the same article: ”Similar olfactory paradoxes are at work in perfumes”, says Fischetti. Rose scented fragrances often contain small amounts of civet absolute, an extract from the anal scent glands of civet cats, weasel-like creatures of Asia. Yet “when you taste concentrated civet, it reminds you of fecal matter”, he adds. Taste it? “In old days we got civet from Asia,” says Fischetti. “It came packed in water buffalo horns. One of my jobs was to tell if it really was civet. You had to taste it to make sure.” (Instruments now do the job.)” I’d like to hear more about that, I think! On a more serious note, Frank has contributed to many other publications including: Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Terminology-Two chapters on flavors Handbook of Food Additives, and many others. One of Frank’s most prized articles is “The Science of Artificial Flavor Creation”. A few years ago, Frank gave this presentation to our members at one of our education programs. (You can find a copy of it posted on www.fks.com –a plug for Dick Heinze’s website.) This has been Frank’s passion for many years—to teach and use systematic approaches to flavor creation. In fact, my first contact with Frank was at our first symposium held at Rutgers in 1974. The theme of the Symposium was ”The Multi-faceted Nature of the Flavorist”. The title of Frank’s talk was “The training of a Flavor Chemist—an Organized Approach.” And Frank hasn’t stopped since then. With his passion for this industry and an eagerness to share his knowledge with others, he has been educating flavor chemists, food scientists, product developers, sales & marketing staff, etc. throughout the world.
Together with Dick Heinze, Frank felt a tremendous need to present educational programs to our members at our meetings. Developed for trainees, these lectures are also refreshers for our seasoned members. They have also enlightened us on recent advances in technology as you saw from today’s presentations.
Now, I have just a few more personal comments to make. My second run in with Frank was at the President’s Reception. I found myself dancing with Frank. I felt honored, knowing that I had put this guy on a pedestal long before. Well, he should have been on some kind of stool, considering our height differences. I’ll never forget that moment. Later on, due to Dale Eskin’s encouragement, I became Program Committee Chairperson for CSA. Frank was on the nominating Committee and convinced me that I should be Treasurer of CSA. I was shocked and at the same time honored the he had confidence in this nobody. And the rest is history. I remember all of those Board meetings. Did we actually get anything constructive done? All of the kibitzing behind closed doors!
And now I’d like to have some of Frank’s friends get up and say a few words. Two of Franks’ early trainees at Fritzsche: Dale Eskin and Mike Fasano Dick Heinze who worked with Frank in putting the early Educational Programs together. Dolf DeRovira who lectures with Frank on Flavors at the Center for Professional Advancement And Tom Mazetti, owner of Craftmaster, where Frank worked for a number of years.
Before I present the award, a few quotes from our guest of honor From The Science of Artificial Flavor Creation ”A Science is a branch of knowledge or study especially one concerned with establishing and systemizing facts, principles, and methods as by experimentation and hypothesis. We have knowledge, we have concepts, we have facts and are systemizing, organizing them, we have principles and we most assuredly have methods. Ergo, we have the science of flavors. ”Beware the man who refuses to demystify his expertise…He either is ignorant or pulling a scam.” ”Tis vain to use more when fewer will do.”—Occam’s Razor ”Thank you lord for IR, UV, and GC, but ne’er let a technique be found that will dispense with me.”—Frank Fischetti, Jr.
I would now like to introduce Frank Fischetti and his wife, Dorothy. They’ve raised five children and enjoy their seven grand children. I am extremely honored to be able to present this award to you.
Golden Blotter Award presented to Frank Fischetti, Jr.
For your Outstanding Contributions to the Flavor and Food Industry
September 14, 2006