{{Short description|French businessman (1905–2009)}} {{ infobox person | name = Daniel Carasso | birth_date = {{birth date|1905|12|16|df=yes}} | birth_place = Salonica, Ottoman Empire | death_date = {{death date and age|2009|05|17|1905|12|16|df=yes}} | death_place = Neuilly-sur-Seine, France | alma_mater = École supérieure de commerce de Marseille<br>Pasteur Institute | parents = Isaac Carasso }}
'''Daniel Carasso''' (December 16, 1905<ref>[http://www.lemonde.fr/carnet/article/2009/05/23/daniel-carasso-fondateur-de-danone_1197142_3382.html Daniel Carasso, fondateur de Danone.]</ref> – May 17, 2009)<ref name="nytimes-carasso">{{cite news|title=Daniel Carasso, a pioneer of yogurt, dies at 103|first=William|last=Grimes|date=May 20, 2009|accessdate=May 21, 2009|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/business/21carasso.html?hpw|archive-date=July 13, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110713053843/http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/business/21carasso.html?hpw|url-status=live}}</ref> was a French member of the prominent Sephardic Jewish Carasso family and the son of Isaac Carasso, founder of the (now) multinational Danone.
==Biography== Carasso, son of Isaac Carasso, was born in Salonica, Ottoman Empire (modern Thessaloniki, Greece), where his family had lived for four hundred years following Spain's expulsion of its Jews. In 1916, after the Balkan Wars, the family moved to Barcelona.<ref name="nytimes-carasso" /> In 1919, Carasso's father began marketing a yogurt that he named 'Danone' after Daniel, whose nickname was Danon.<ref name="nytimes-carasso" />
In 1923, Carasso enrolled in business school in Marseille, France, and studied bacteriology at the Pasteur Institute.<ref name="nytimes-carasso" /> He took over the family business. In 1939, he opened a branch in France.
He settled in the United States in 1941 after fleeing France when it was invaded by the Nazis.<ref name="nytimes-carasso" /> Carasso returned to France in 1951.<ref name="nytimes-carasso" />
==Death==
He died at his home in Paris at the age of 103.<ref name="nytimes-carasso" />
==Dannon Yogurt== In 1942, he formed a partnership with two family friends, Joe Metzger, a Swiss-born Spanish businessman, and his son Juan. They bought a small Greek yogurt company, Oxy-Gala, and founded Dannon Milk Products in Bronx, New York.<ref name="nytimes-carasso" /> In 1947, Dannon added jam to its yogurt as a concession to American tastes and succeeded in growing sales to a broad market. He expanded the business into cheeses and other foodstuffs, and bought the American company from Beatrice Foods in 1981, changing the name to Groupe Danone.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://jta.org/news/article/2009/05/25/1005405/daniel-carasso-dannon-yogurt-namesake-dies |title=Daniel Carasso, Dannon yogurt namesake, dies |access-date=2011-04-08 |archive-date=2012-06-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120609170949/http://www.jta.org/news/article/2009/05/25/1005405/daniel-carasso-dannon-yogurt-namesake-dies |url-status=live }}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
{{Wikinews|Daniel Carasso, Danone founder died}} {{Danone}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Carasso, Daniel}} Category:1905 births Category:2009 deaths Category:20th-century French Sephardi Jews Category:People who emigrated to escape Nazism Category:Jews from Thessaloniki Category:French men centenarians Category:Centenarians from the Ottoman Empire Category:Emigrants from the Ottoman Empire to France Category:Spanish emigrants to France Category:French emigrants to the United States Category:Groupe Danone people Category:Immigrants to Spain Category:Jewish centenarians