Avoca: Sage Advice from the Odor Generation
Photos courtesy of Avoca
By Jim Shamp, Senior Editor, NC Biotechnology Center
The pungent aroma of clary sage wafting across colorful eastern North Carolina fields began its annual
transformation into the smell of money this week.
Every June for the past 30 years, farmers contracting with the Bertie County firm known as Avoca
have harvested the pink, white and purple sage plants that now adorn some 5,500 acres with eye-
popping color and, for some, a nose-grabbing odor.
Some say the colorful little sage blossoms stink. Ultimately, however, this unusual late-spring harvest
ritual comes up smelling like a rose – or more significantly, like an expensive French perfume –
through modern technology improving upon North Carolina’s vestigial fishing and tobacco industries. It
dazzles wide-eyed tourists headed to and from the Outer Banks along U.S. Route 64, but most don’t
realize this outsized flower show is also an epicenter of scent.
In fact, David Peele, Ph.D., Avoca’s president, said Avoca sells to the fragrance industry more than 90
percent of the world’s supply of a key component – a derivative of sage extract called sclareolide. It’s a
modern-day replacement for ambergris, a waxy floating prize from the vomit and excreta of sperm
whales collected by fishermen of previous generations. Like its predecessor, sclareolide is used as a
“fixative” to maintain perfume potency in everything from laundry supplies to … well, perfumes.
The main product from clary sage is sclareol, a wax excreted from the plant, apparently to protect it
from diseases. Growers harvest the sage with forage choppers, cutting the whole plant into one-inch
pieces, and bring it to Avoca where each truckload is tested and priced according to its sclareol
content. The harvested sage is extracted using hexane.
Sclareol is the starting material for the production of sclareolide.
“The transformation of sclareol to the sclareolide product is the most interesting part,” said Peele,
“b