Isaac Carasso
Co-founder 1919Background
Isaac Carasso was a Greek immigrant physician living in Barcelona who observed widespread intestinal infections and malnutrition among Spanish children in the 1910s. Inspired by Nobel laureate Élie Metchnikoff's research at the Pasteur Institute on lactic acid bacteria and longevity, Carasso applied Balkan fermentation techniques to produce yogurt as a medicinal product. His decision to sell through pharmacies rather than food shops established Danone's health-origin positioning that persists today.
Role at Danone S.A.
Danone possesses a historic and poignant founding story, tracing its origins to a small pharmacy in Barcelona, Spain, and driven by a father's concern for children's health. The company was founded in 1919 by Isaac Carasso, a Sephardic Jewish immigrant from the Ottoman Empire (specifically from Thessaloniki). Following the devastation of World War I, Carasso settled in Barcelona. He observed a troubling public health crisis: a huge number of local children were suffering from severe intestinal and digestive disorders due to poor hygiene and malnutrition. Carasso, familiar with the health benefits of fermented milk from his youth in the Balkans, believed that yogurt could cure these ailments. At the time yogurt was essentially unknown in Western Europe. He imported specific lactic acid ferments from the Pasteur Institute in Paris and began producing yogurt in a small laboratory. He named the brand 'Danone' (meaning 'Little Daniel' in Catalan, a tribute to his young son, Daniel Carasso). Crucially, because he viewed it as a health product, he initially sold Danone yogurt exclusively through pharmacies, rather than grocery stores. When his son Daniel came of age, he possessed entrepreneurial ambition. Daniel Carasso moved to France and founded the Société Parisienne du Yoghourt Danone in 1929, transforming the brand from a local Spanish pharmaceutical remedy into a French mass-market consumer product. However, when the Nazis invaded France during World War II, Daniel Carasso (being Jewish) was forced to flee to New York, where he founded Dannon Milk Products, introducing yogurt to the American market. After the war, he returned to France, orchestrated mergers (most notably with the French glassmaker BSN in 1973), and transformed his father's small Barcelona pharmacy remedy into a globally dominant food empire.