The dynamics of danone.communities

At the end of 2005, Franck Riboud, CEO of Danone, and Muhammad Yunus, president of the Grameen Bank and winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, discovered that they held the same views about the development of disadvantaged populations. They decided to found a joint company, Grameen Danone Food. As a result, since 2007 a factory in Bangladesh has been producing yogurt which is high in micronutrients. Also in 2007, Danone and the Crédit Agricole bank decided to create an original financial tool, danone.communities unit trusts. Their aim was to support the construction of more factories in Bangladesh, to launch other similar projects in other parts of the world, to develop partnerships with local people and NGOs, and to bring together people who want to contribute to the development of social business either as participants or as new-style investors. This has marked the beginning of the dynamics which have reinvented Danone's dual economic and social project, and has had consequences on the management of the company itself.