Daniel Carasso

Daniel Carasso was a French member of the prominent Sephardic Jewish Carasso family and the son of Isaac Carasso, founder of the (now) multinational Danone. He was born in Salonica, Ottoman Empire (modern Thessaloniki, Greece), where his family had lived for four hundred years following Spain's expulsion of its Jews. In 1916, after the Balkan Wars, the family moved to Barcelona. In 1919, Carasso's father began marketing a yogurt that he named 'Danone' after Daniel, whose nickname in Catalan was Danon. In 1923, Carasso enrolled in business school in Marseille, France, and studied bacteriology at the Pasteur Institute. He took over the family business and opened a branch in France in 1939. He settled in the United States in 1941 after fleeing France when it was invaded by the Nazis. He formed a partnership with two family friends, Joe Metzger, a Swiss-born Spanish businessman, and his son Juan. They bought a small Greek yogurt company, Oxy-Gala, and founded Dannon Milk Products in Bronx, New York. In 1947, Dannon added jam to its yogurt as a concession to American tastes and succeeded in growing sales to a broad market. He expanded the business into cheeses and other foodstuffs, and bought the American company from Beatrice Foods in 1981, changing the name to Groupe Danone. He returned to France in 1951 and was involved in company-related activities until the very end of his life, including the recent 90th anniversary of the Danone's brand name. He died at his home in Paris at the age of 103. He was married to Nina Meyer, a German-born Jewish refugee, and had two children, Marina and Franck. He was a philanthropist and supported various causes, such as education, health, environment, and intercultural dialogue. He was also a collector of art and books, and a lover of music and poetry. He was awarded the Legion of Honour, the highest French order of merit, in 1989.