Making the yogurts of today
Photos credit: Danone
Outside of Paris, the Danone Research & Innovation centre sits in Paris-Saclay. The building, opened in 2023, was a return to Danone’s underlying roots of its history and mission, it said – to build the future of ingredients, ferments, habits and sustainable packaging and manufacturing.
Paris Saclay Global Research & Innovation Center Daniel Carasso is Danone’s largest global research centre. It houses more than 550 research staff, including biotech researchers, experts in consumer and social sciences, product design, and fermentation, nutrition and health professionals.
The site is equipped with research laboratories, trial labs, and pilot facilities to make prototypes of concepts. It contains around 3,500 square metres of pilot laboratories, plus consumer spaces, in order to bring in consumers to design innovations with.
Twenty years ago, Danone was one of the first companies to invest in the Saclay business park when it built its first international research centre, the Daniel Carasso centre. As one of the world’s eight biggest innovation clusters, Paris Saclay will soon attract one third of research and innovation investment in France, the company says.
Patrick Clarke, user experience senior director for dairy, plant-based and waters at Danone, notes it is a place where they can observe consumers, discuss with them what they do and work with them on new products, such as the high protein products. The company has spaces across the world to showcase and examine the use of the products in various settings.
For protein, there is growing consumer interest, the dairy giant says. Trending ingredients such as a macchiato flavouring are associated with physical uplift and energy, and thus Danone is using versions such as this to reach consumers.
The R&D centre also has areas for many different types of sensorial science, looking at flavours, fruits, granularity, and scanning the market to better understand the early signals for consumers. Texture, for example, is very important for high protein yogurt, but different users prefer different formats, depending on the time of day they’re eating the products.
In the Life Sciences laboratory, the main objective is providing the probiotic ferments for Danone. It is about combining bacteria for function and flavour. In screening products, models such as an artificial intestine are used for working with intestinal flora. The ferments library has 2,000 ownable strains, which began in 1919 when the company started to make yogurt.
A history
In 1919 in Barcelona, Isaac Carasso recognised the health benefits of fermented milk for children suffering from intestinal issues. Manufacturing the first ferments – and naming them after his son Daniel – Carasso began to sell Danone yogurt products as a health food to pharmacies. To this day, diversity is key for bacteria, Dr Raish Oozeer, senior programme leader of gut health, Danone Research & Innovation, notes.
A database with genomic sequencing of the strains is also available for use, and AI helps to sort out the massive amount of data available in the collection. “We look a lot at gut health, and how nutrients and probiotics survive through the tract,” Oozeer says.
Also in the laboratories were analyses of soluble molecules, of which there are more than 200 that contribute to Danone’s latest product range, HiPro. Pilot plants are also used to make prototypes for dairy products, so that the products may be easily scaled up once they have been produced at the centre. It’s all about making a product with an excellent taste, functional and affordable, according to the company.
