History of Danone food company

Isaac Carasso, a Salonica-born Sephardic Jewish doctor from the Ottoman Empire, lives in Barcelona in the 1910s. He observes that many Spanish children suffer from intestinal infection.

In 1919, Isaac Carasso created a simple food with a simple aim to improve health: mixing ferments and fresh milk, he made a yogurt that he affectionately named ‘Danone’ after his son, Daniel Carasso.

He was inspired by the immunologist Elie Metchnikoff’s research at the Institut Pasteur into the role of ferments in gut and overall health. Isaac Carasso added lactic ferments to the yogurt, whose health benefits had been demonstrated. The yogurt was packaged in porcelain pots, which Isaac Carasso began to sell “Danone” yogurt to pharmacies in 1919.

One decade later, Daniel joined the family business and successfully expanded Danone across France. He creates the brand’s first advertising slogan: “Delicious and healthy, Danone yogurt is the right dessert for happy, healthy digestion.” Danone pioneers its message of bringing together enjoyment and health.

In the late 1930s, with Europe once again on the brink of war, he decided to move to the United States. Daniel had to adapt Danone’s model to survive in America. He rebranded Danone to Dannon to avoid alienating the American market. He also developed a new financial model, where consumers paid a 3-cents deposit for the half-pint glass that the yoghurt was sold in.

In 1951, Daniel Carasso returned to Paris to manage the family's businesses in France and Spain, and the American business was sold to Beatrice Foods in 1959; it was repurchased by Danone in 1981.

In Europe in 1967, Danone merged with Gervais, the leading fresh cheese producer in France, and became Gervais Danone.

In 1973, BSN merged with Gervais Danone, a French food and beverage group specialized in dairy and pasta products, becoming the largest food and beverage group in France.

In 1994, BSN changed its name to Groupe Danone, adopting the name of the group’s best-known international brand and from 2000 on, they sold all their beer companies and, later they also left some activities like sauces and cereals in order to focus on more healthy production.

In the early 1990s, Danone made international growth a major priority by penetrating new markets in locations such as China and Eastern Europe by acquiring well-known brands in their respective countries such as China’s ‘Amoy’, a producer of soy sauces and frozen foods.
History of Danone food company

Dutch East India Company (The United East India Company)

During the last quarter of the sixteenth century, the Dutch had been actively engaged in trying to reach the Asian sources of spices and other luxury goods and contest the Portuguese monopoly of the Cape route.

Starting in 1595, merchants from the Dutch Republic built up a very successful overseas trade with Asia. In seven years, they sent separate expeditions totaling 80 ships from Amsterdam, Middelburg, and Rotterdam.

The Estates General strove to merge the various local initiatives into a single, strong company, and achieved this with the launch of the VOC (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie). The company which established on 20 March 1602, was a compromise between the various interests concerned. It merged six previous merchant companies that had been sending fleets to the East since 1595.

The company’s charter reflected the weight of political priorities over commercial ones by putting the Estates General in full control.The early companies of Amsterdam, Delft, Hoorn, Middelburg, Rotterdam, and Zeeland, had varying degrees of success but ultimately competed with each other raising the price of spices in Asia.

The Dutch objective was however, to displace Portugal’s empire in the East, and assume control of the trade of Asian products in Europe.

The Dutch East India Company was the world’s first multinational corporation. The company set the standard for maritime trade in the East Indies.

The charter conferred the VOC with rights of trade, diplomacy and conquest in the vast area to the east of the Cape of Good Hope and to the west of the Strait of Magellan.

The VOC was a beacon of Dutch maritime prowess and administrative ingenuity. Indeed, it is no coincidence that the rapid ascension of the VOC coincided with the Dutch Golden Age, a period in which Dutch trade, technology, military and arts were at the world’s forefront.

By the mid seventeenth century, the VOC had established trade routes through India, China, and Japan, while warring for territories in the East Indies that eventually became official Dutch colonies in the early 19th century.

The volume of trade soared throughout the seventeenth century, also known as the Dutch Golden Age. The first decades of the eighteenth century also witnessed a significant increase in shipping to and from Asia, but the turning point came around 1730 when the English East India Company was more organized and started competing more aggressively.

The VOC’s difficulties were aggravated by the collapse of the First Dutch Republic in 1795 and the company was nationalized in 1796 and finally dissolved on 31 December 1799.
Dutch East India Company (The United East India Company)

Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East-Indies

During the sixteenth century, English merchants became increasingly interested in the possibility of capturing some of the lucrative ocean-going spice trade in the Indian Ocean, which Dutch and Portuguese companies were finding very profitable.

The British East India Company (also known as Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East-Indies) was formed to share in the East Indian spice trade. The company serve as a trading body for English merchants, specifically to participate in the East Indian spice trade. It later added such items as cotton, silk, indigo, saltpeter, tea, and opium to its wares and also participated in the slave trade.

This trade had been a near monopoly of Spain and Portugal until the Dutch moved into the region in the 1600s; after which they maintained the same control by trying to keep out other nations.

The East India Company (EIC) was incorporated by royal charter on December 31, 1600. The charter listed the aims of the Company as the “pursuit of mercantile profit” and the “advancement of trade”.

The charter granted a monopoly of all English trade in all lands washed by the Indian Ocean (from the southern tip of Africa, to Indonesia in the South Pacific). Unauthorized (British) interlopers were liable to forfeiture of ships and cargo. The company was managed by a governor and 24 directors chosen from its stockholders.

Starting as a monopolistic trading body, the company became involved in politics and acted as an agent of British imperialism in India from the early 18th century to the mid-19th century. In addition, the activities of the company in China in the 19th century served as a catalyst for the expansion of British influence there.

The East India Company far outpaced its rivals by acquiring extraordinary wealth and power. In particular, in its pursuit of resources and goods in the Indian subcontinent, it preceded the British government as the ruler of large parts of India.

Trading with the East Indies not only allowed England to gain needed products, but also allowed them to learn how to manufacture these goods for themselves. In the beginning, the British were paying a lot of money for these products, because they did not have a choice. As time went on though, they were able to manufacture some of the products for a fraction of the cost at home.

From the late 18th century it gradually lost both commercial and political control. In 1873 it ceased to exist as a legal entity.
Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East-Indies