Abstract
Danone is the only food group today which focuses on health. The venture began in 1966 with BSN, a French glass-making company that is specialized in packaging and flat glass. Because of a foreseeable decline of glass, BSN's CEO Antoine Riboud decided to concentrate the business on the content of the glass containers in the early 1970s. After a meeting with the CEO of Gervais Danone, with Daniel Carasso, in 1972, he hired Kronenbourg from Evian who wanted Danone to be a globally recognized brand. To this end BSN and Gervais Danone merged in 1973 under the name BSN. A reorganization of the BSN's manufacturing plant was thus necessitated. Also, in the 1980s BSN did a lot of acquisitions in the European food industry. Thus it became an international business by the early 1990s. Since 1994 it was renamed Danone. Two years later the company was taken over by his son Franck Riboud. He decided in favor of a change of the strategy of the Group's business, guiding it towards a high growth potential and a strong health positioning. Therefore he arranged about 50 acquisitions and many sales of businesses within 10 years. The focus on health culminated in the 2007 with the takeover of the Dutch company Royal Numico. Today the Group is structured into four business lines: Fresh Dairy Products, Water, Baby Nutrition, and Medical Nutrition. Danone is the first and only food company with a clear health-through-food positioning, which has a high growth potential.
