The allegory is easy: a superb golden rooster strolls placidly in the impeccable streets of Singapore, not far from the local seat of Danone. The animal seems at home, at the foot of steel and glass buildings which are close with lush vegetation and detonating influences-the Chinatown district is not far away … The French multinational has been established in Southeast Asia for a long time: it has even more than seventy years of presence in Indonesia, recalled its director general Antoine de Saint-Affrique, who accompanied Emmanuel Macron State in Djakarta last May, an opportunity to sign a strategic memorandum of understanding with the National Indonesian Nutrition Agency.
Almost neighboring, Singapore is “A nerve point” For Danone, exhibits Christian Stammkkoetter, president of the Asia area, Middle East, Africa (Amea). “We notably materialized in a partnership in 2018 with the Singapore Economic Development Board, continues the German leader. The local government is very attentive to the aging of the population and we are in line with their way of thinking about health, by going from a curative approach to a preventive and predictive logic, where nutrition plays a central role. »» For the food giant, the city-state is both a hub and a fertile ground, with 30 million euros invested in the last five years: “With its universities and hospitals, the local ecosystem is very conducive to collaborations. It is a pole of attraction for local and international talents! »»
Identify deficiencies
This research effort is first of all in the OneBiome Lab, within the Biopolis district: since 2010, Danone has explored the mysteries of the microbiota, from which digital health data is used in clinical studies. Singapore teams present the expensive DNA sequencing machines there, the freezers where samples are kept, duly listed to be reused for future analyzes … The whole thing already makes it possible to identify deficiencies or intolerances, to suggest and monitor suitable diets. The deployment of AI and the accumulation of knowledge, in connection with the centers of Saclay, in France, and Utrecht, in the Netherlands, will multiply the possibilities of this arsenal which “Make the invisible visible”explains Katrien Van Laere, Vice-President nutritional and medical science of the group.
If the work is intended to be used for the 120 countries where Danone is present, the regional particularities are also the subject of particular studies: approximately a third of children in the Amea zone are struck by malnutrition and need milks and enriched products to remedy anemia, rachitism or simple lack of growth. Cultural factors are added, such as the proportion of births by cesarean in Thailand – almost 40 % are thus programmed -, which are a source of immune deficit.
Specialized nutrition is the group’s locomotive
Danone therefore also develops health tools that complete its products. They are presented to us by young “Danoners” enthusiastic, under the leadership of Agathe Foussat, the director of “D-Lab”, the Singaporean digital laboratory. The “Iron Tracker” assesses the lack of iron without compulsory recourse to a blood test; The “Growth Tracker” monitors the growth of children, using a simple mobile application, which offers scientific monitoring to populations who do not have easily access to medical personnel; The “Stool Tracker”, finally, allows a diagnosis of the stools of babies from simple photos, analyzed by artificial intelligence.
Back to fundamentals
The health and impact of food will become more and more determining in a market that is at a turning point, estimated Danone last year, at the opening of the “Next chapter” 2025-2028, by Antoine de Saint-Affrique. Managing Director of the Group since 2022, he continued the “Renew plan”driven upon arrival for “Reconnect with a profitable and sustainable growth model” – and turn the wave page of the end of the Emmanuel Faber era.
Successfully: in 2024, annual sales were, for the first time in ten years, brought by a volume increase, and not only by prices … for a global turnover of 27.4 billion euros, up 4.3 % with comparable data. Specialized nutrition weighs for a third of the turnover (half in the Amea zone) and is still the locomotive of the good results communicated this week by the group for the first half of 2025.
“Bring health through food to the greatest number” There remains more than ever the raison d’être of the group, including François Banon, secretary general for France, recalls that it was present from the outset: in 1919, Isaac Carasso had first sold his yogurts in pharmacies, developed to remedy the digestive disorders of the children of Barcelona … and “Danon” comes from the Catalan nickname of his son Daniel, who will be the creator of the French subsidiary d’Antoine Riboud… for Katrien Van Laere, “This mission of which we are proud has never been so current”.
