Isaac Carasso

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Isaac Carasso (1874–April 19, 1939) was an entrepreneur from the Sephardic Jewish Carasso family in Salonica (now Thessaloniki, Greece). After moving to Barcelona in 1916, he started a yogurt factory. He believed yogurt could help children’s digestion, inspired by Ilya Mechnikov’s ideas about sour milk. He imported yogurt cultures from Bulgaria or used pure cultures from Mechnikov’s lab at the Institut Pasteur. Because yogurt was new in Western Europe, he initially sold it as a medicine through pharmacies.

In 1919, he opened a small yogurt business in Barcelona called Danone, named after his son Daniel. He developed an industrial way to make yogurt. His son Daniel Carasso later expanded the business to France and the United States, where it became Dannon. Isaac Carasso died in France in 1939. His work laid the foundations for Groupe Danone.