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Ori Yehudai - President C.E.O. of Frutarom

New York, NY - The Manhattan maple mystery has been solved.

“The odor in New York City was an ester associated with foenugreek seed processing,” Mayor Bloomberg said Thursday morning. “The Health Department confirmed that the odor does not probe a health risk.”

The sweet syrupy smell has occasionally wafted over the city for the last four years, prompting worry among New Yorkers and a frantic but fruitless search for the cause.

City agencies mapped wind patterns, odor reports and air samples to determine that food processing plants in New Jersey’s Bergen and Hudson counties were the likely cause.

A company called Frutarom  was processing foenugreek seeds to produce food additives when the smell popped up most recently, on Jan. 29.

Neither Frutarom nor any of the other processors appear to be violating any rules or laws, city officials said.

New Yorkers have said it smelled like French toast, pancakes or even coffee cake.

It last appeared a month ago, when 35 people called the city’s 311 line to report the odd odor.

The smell first wafted over the city in 2005, triggering fears of a chemical spill or biological terrorism.

Cops, Health Department workers and Environmental Protection response teams all sampled the air and searched for the cause.

Investigators concluded there was nothing toxic or harmful about the odor, but still couldn’t figure out where it came from.

The Department of Environmental Protection plans to install four permanent air monitors in areas with frequent reports to keep track of future releases.

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