100 years of Danone: Company opens access to its historical collection of 1,800 bacterial strains

10 May 2019 --- French multinational Danone has granted open access to its collection of 1,800 strains of bacteria for research purposes, in celebration of the 100-year anniversary since the creation of its first yogurt. This includes granting access to its current collection of 193 lactic and bifidobacteria ferment strains deposited at the National Collection of Cultures of Microorganisms, held in the Biological Resource Center of Institut Pasteur (CRBIP).

The over 1,800 strains, archived at its Research & Innovation center in Paris-Saclay, France, will be accessible to researchers around the world to promote “open science” – Danone’s movement toward openness in scientific research, sharing and the development of knowledge through collaborative networks.

Danone Nutricia Research also recently joined forces with the California San Diego Center for Microbiome Innovation (CMI) to further advance understanding of the connection between the diet and human gut through The Human Diets & Microbiome Initiative (THDMI). Through scientific partnerships and wider collaborations to encourage open science and innovation, Danone hopes to gain traction towards its 2030 Goals, which aim to generate growth in an “inclusive way, through internal and external collaborations.”

“As part of our commitment to meet people’s needs, we have continuously invested over the past century to build Danone’s expertise in ferments, fermentation and health through food. At a time when our food system and society face a range of unprecedented challenges, we are proud to open our unique collection of strains to the world’s researchers to help us progress towards a healthier and more sustainable world,” says Danone’s Chairman & CEO Emmanuel Faber, addressing the company’s centennial anniversary.

A focal motivation of the company to further accelerate research in the microbiota space is exemplified by recent undertakings, such as last month’s US$50,000 in scholarships the company awarded to graduate students in the US towards the funding of new studies in probiotics and gut bacteria. This heightened attention on the linkage of bacteria to overall health is driven by a new understanding of how gut bacteria from the food we consume influences a host of factors such as allergies, brain health and autoimmune functions.

NutritionInsight reached out to Danone for comment on these latest developments.

Building on a centennial legacy
The first Danone yogurt was produced in Barcelona, 1919, by Isaac Carasso, who was inspired by the immunologist Elie Metchnikoff’s research at the Institut Pasteur into the role of gut ferments and overall health. Faced with the poor gut health affecting Barcelona’s children, Isaac began selling his first yogurts fermented with lactic acid in Barcelona’s pharmacies. Over the years, through research and innovation and collaboration with international researchers, Danone has built a ferment collection of high genetic diversity.

Lactic and bifidobacteria ferments – special bacteria which are used to produce yogurts and fermented dairy – may have a range of additional applications for both food and non-food products, many of which have not been fully explored or utilized to date. They could potentially help address a series of health, societal and environmental challenges, which include:

• Increasing the diversity of natural, fermented food products, and developing higher value-added dairy products to secure a greater revenue stream for farmers. 
• Reducing crop and food losses, by preventing the growth of fungi, bacteria and viruses on crops, as well as on harvested and stored food.
• Protecting and regenerating soil.
• Mitigating methane emissions from cows.
• Reducing antibiotic use and the spread of antibiotic resistance, in both animals and humans.
• Developing easier methods to deliver drugs or vaccines to humans.

The Human Diets & Microbiome Initiative
The Human Diets & Microbiome Initiative (THDMI), created through a partnership of Danone Nutricia Research and the University of California San Diego Center for Microbiome Innovation (CMI), explores the connection between the diet and human gut. The ambition of THDMI is to address two primary goals:

• Collect human microbiota samples across different countries – for mapping the human microbiota with a more global population representation, and towards a higher sequencing resolution.
• Improve on the collection of the participants’ corresponding dietary habits to increase the knowledge of the microbiome’s impact on human health, with an ultimate goal to develop nutritional tailored solutions for a healthy gut.

Through its industry partnerships, the CMI encompasses a large range of expertise in microbiome sampling, a broad range of technologies (metagenomics, metabolomics, metatranscriptomics) and data analysis using high-performance algorithms, machine learning and modeling.

Danone’s global B Corp ambition
Further to its research initiatives, Danone has expressed a corporate ambition to be among the first food multinational companies to obtain a global B Corp certification, through ensuring that all its entities are certified to this standard by 2030. B Corp is a sustainable business certification launched in the US in 2006 that has been gaining momentum around the world. In line with Danone’s vision, B Lab, a non-profit organization, accredits B Corp certification to for-profit companies that demonstrate high standards of social and environmental performance. At present, 11 entities (over 30 percent of the company’s global sales) are B Corp certified.

By Benjamin Ferrer