Most North Carolinians probably have no idea what’s cooking at Mother Murphy’s Laboratories in Greensboro. But anyone walking by the 68,000-square-foot facility on Elm Street surely can’t escape the magnificent smells emanating from within.

Anyone who savors a sweet pastry, sips on a smoothie, munches some potato chips, chews a stick of gum, sucks on a lozenge, eats a bowl of cereal or drinks an espresso is most likely benefiting from the many custom-flavor products and extracts invented at this family-owned and operated company.

“Though we distribute products to 23 different countries, we just may be one of the best-kept secrets in North Carolina,” says David Wilhoit, vice president of sales and marketing.

“People in Greensboro think we’re a bakery,” adds Kris Hudson, advertising and marketing manager. “They tell us we sure smell good.”

Mother Murphy’s dates back to 1946. That’s when Kermit Murphy, a local insurance agent, teamed with Richard Stelling, a Greensboro doctor, to install a mixer in the back room of a drug store and begin concocting food flavorings on nights and weekends.

That partnership led to the launching of the Southern Laboratories Company the following year, and in 1948 the two moved their backroom operation to a plant they built on Arnold Street.

The company continued to grow, but a more descriptive name was needed. Southern Laboratories was changed to Mother Murphy’s Laboratories.

Kermit Murphy’s brother, L.M. “Pete” Murphy, came on board to help further expand the company. In 1965, Mother Murphy’s moved into the South Elm Street building, which still serves as its corporate headquarters. A 15,000-square-foot warehouse is located nearby. Today, Mother Murphy’s employs nearly 80 people—and counting.

“If everything falls into place, 2009 is going to be our best year ever,” says David Murphy, the current president and son of the late Kermit Murphy.

According to Murphy, the company has developed more than 5,000 different flavors specifically tailored for the baking, beverage, confection, dairy, pharmaceutical, tobacco, grain, snack and pet industries.

“We’ve elevated the science of flavor creation to an art, and flavor chemists are like artists,” Murphy notes. “But our bread and butter, if you will, is vanilla. We’ve developed 300 varieties of that flavoring alone.”

Three hundred variations of vanilla? “We have customers who want something specially designed for them, something unique,” he says.

How about “grass-flavored” deer feed? Or in the jelly bean line, a “pencil shavings” flavor?
The flavor chemists at Mother Murphy’s have come up with those distinct, if not exotic, specialties, too.

“As much as we love to develop these new flavors, personally I like the ones that sell,” Murphy says.

Pat Hutchinson Butler, vice president of research and development, was working on a peach flavoring. After adding one chemical, it all of a sudden turned into a red plum flavoring. She noted it, started over and came up with the peach flavoring, but later was able to resurrect the red plum, which sold.

“I’ve been at Mother Murphy’s for 26 years now. There are a lot of trial and errors involved,” Butler says. “But it’s still a lot of fun to come up with new flavors to meet the needs of our clients.”