The GDFL early story, told by Richard Branson : “Profit is not all that matters”

Laurence Saquer (on Grameen Danone Foods Ltd)

on the Thursday, 26 April, 2012 - 17:07

Richard Branson is an entrepreneur. His biography on Wikipedia mentions the 400 businesses he created. On Business Day, he tells the story of the beginning of Grameen Danone Foods Ltd, the first social business of danone.communities, based on the idea of Muhammad Yunus and Franck Riboud. It is very interesting to see how such an entrepreneur describes the early weeks and months of GDFL. This is why we decided to publish a large part of the article. (Find the original article here).

"SCREW it, let’s do it," is my mantra. When you are throwing out the rule book and starting afresh — particularly if you’re focused on doing social and environmental good, and not just on profits — sometimes you just have to leap. One successful business that took this approach is Grameen Danone, a joint venture between Danone, the international health and nutrition company, and Grameen Bank, a micro-finance and community development organisation based in Bangladesh.

In October 2005, Muhammad Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank and a creator of the concept of micro-credit, was invited to meet with Franck Riboud, the CEO of Danone, along with seven other high-level officers at the company. Yunus was not told what the agenda would be, but he hoped this leading entrepreneur might want to help with the goal of eradicating poverty, which Grameen Bank was working to accomplish by lending small sums of money to small enterprises and to individuals, to help people launch businesses and otherwise improve their situations.

Grameen Danone is looking for a 'Milk Strategic Sourcing VIE'

Matthieu Dardaillon (on Grameen Danone Foods Ltd)

on the Tuesday, 17 April, 2012 - 13:35

Grameen Danone is a social business that started in 2007. The objectives of GRAMEEN DANONE are to bring health through nutrition to many children as possible, and to have a positive social impact on poor local communities by creating employment, income and skills. Grameen Danone produces and distribues fortified yoghurt in Bangladesh.

Grameen Danone is looking for a VIE (Volontariat International en Entreprise) for 12 months (01/07/2012 - 01/07/2013), based in Bogra/Dhaka, Bangladesh. We are looking for someone with an engineer profile, with a special interest in social business. 

Job description :

Planète d’Entrepreneurs, visiting Bangladesh, published an article on Grameen Danone

Matthieu Dardaillon (on Grameen Danone Foods Ltd)

on the Monday, 20 February, 2012 - 11:42

Visiting Bangladesh in January 2012, Planète d’Entrepreneurs visited the facilities of Grameen Danone Foods Ltd. and summarized the activities of the social business in this publication. The article summarizes in a synthetic way the meeting between Yunus and Franck Riboud in 2005, the birth of the social business in 2006, the results so far and the challenges for tomorrow.

The association Planète d’Entrepreneurs was established in March 2009 to help social entrepreneurs develop operational tools to assess their social impact. The goal of the association is to participate in the emergence of new indicators to measure performance in order to improve and demonstrate the effectiveness of innovative economic and social models to the general public, and especially students. The association therefore seeks to democratize impact measurement tools, because they are crucial to the development and recognition of social entrepreneurship.

GAIN and University John Hopkins about fortified yogurts in Bangladesh : preliminary results.

Laurence Saquer (on Grameen Danone Foods Ltd)

on the Wednesday, 1 February, 2012 - 15:26

In the small world of social business, many people probably already heard about the study led by GAIN (Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition) and University John Hopkins, about the health impact on children eating Shokti Doi, the Grameen Danone Foods Ltd’s product. The first cup was sold in 2007. 5 years after the beginning of this story, what can we say about impact ?

End 2011, GAIN has published on its website an interview of Dr. Sunil Sazawal, who was in charge of the study. Today, we share this interview on our blog to make more people know about the preliminary study results.     

"Between 2008 and 2011, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) funded a study conducted by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, to evaluate the impact of fortified yogurt on the nutritional status and cognitive performance of school-aged children in Bangladesh. The yogurt, produced by Grameen Danone Foods, was supplied during one year to school children aged 6 to 9 years in the town of Gabtali in Bogra District, where Grameen Danone Foods has a factory. Every day, the children were fed one cup (60g) of the fortified yogurt to help meet their daily vitamin A, iron, zinc and iodine requirements. The preliminary results are promising.

Bangladesh - Where It Makes All Sense

Vítek Vojtěch (on Grameen Danone Foods Ltd)

on the Tuesday, 15 November, 2011 - 11:59

Vitek Vojtech (from Danone Czech Republic) is the winner of the Social Innovation Quizz. With Laurence, he came to Bangladesh, and like her, he's not probably the same when he came back home. Thanks to him for his story and the feelings he shares. Thank you Vitek !

"You won´ t find many travel agencies going to Bangladesh. Hell you won´t even find many people that were in Bangladesh and can share some tips with you. So why should you go to Bangladesh anyway?

To be bluntly honest, it was not something I was planning or even hoping for. Being responsible for CRM and new media in CR [Czech Republic], I was just curious to see invitation to danone.communities Facebook competition. My first goal was to see how is global doing on Facebook but very quickly I was caught in the game and the spirit of competition took over.

Few weeks later I am getting call (which first I was very sure it is prank call from my colleagues) from France to find out I am the winner and I go to Bangladesh. If you know where there is Bangladesh on the map, then you knew more than me at that point. Little research on the Internet, Lonely planet slightly scary read, quick visit to doctor for list of vaccinations, several handy tips from Laurence and Melinda and I was good to go. 70% excited, 30% scared!

Back to Bogra for the "Back To Growth" plan

Emmanuel Marchant (on Grameen Danone Foods Ltd)

on the Thursday, 6 October, 2011 - 17:22

Bogra is the place where Grameen Danone and danone.communities were born: it is in this town of 300,000 inhabitants of Bangladesh that has been installed the first factory, "the Zidane’s factory" as we can here sometimes here. This is also where we started door to door sales of Shokti Doi, in villages. At the beginning of the project, I spent a lot of time here and I am happy to return today at the convention "Back to Growth" of Grameen Danone.

After a year of sales more or less stable but not growing, this meeting marks a new beginning.

Corinne Bazina, the new CEO since one year, has done extraordinary work to strengthen her team and organization. "We have to be better every week" - she said.

In fact, she has recruited almost entirely the team around her today (Rashed in logistics management, Dippesh in HR, Rafiqul in production, Sultan in sales) and I am impressed with their passion and professionalism. I also met Marjana, a young professional from Danone Slovenia that came to help for the launch. I asked her how she arrived here, she said "Oh I heard about danone.communities two years ago and it took me two years to convince my boss to let me go, it's not easy because we have a small team. But I am here finally ". I also learned that four employees have gone to overseas training this year. In short, I see with my eyes the consolidation of teams that will be the true foundation of success and sustainability of Grameen Danone.

The innovative Shokti+ Pocket is born

luc (on Grameen Danone Foods Ltd)

on the Monday, 19 September, 2011 - 10:39

 A few days ago, innovation stroke again in Betgari, Bogra. Grameen Danone is proposing a new product: the Shokti+ Pocket!

 

New visitors in Bogra in October !

Laurence Saquer (on Grameen Danone Foods Ltd)

on the Friday, 22 July, 2011 - 09:03

Hello all,

The central team in Paris has created a game on Facebook dedicated to Danoners. It is called Social Innovation Quiz because all the questions were about the actions within Danone which goal is to create innovation and social impact. The game was opened from May the 19^th until July the 8^th and the winner has been announced this week : this is Vitek Vojtech, from Czech Republic.

“Ok, that’s great, they have a winner. So what?”

The fact is that Vitek will come to Bangladesh in October, to visit the plant, meet the local teams, the beneficiaries, the Shokti Ladies. He will be with… myself ! And we’ll make special reports in this blog. We are so happy to come and be part of this project, in a way.

Social innovation, here we are!

Here is the game on Facebook, when it ended.

A pilot in Rangpur in partnership with CARE Bangladesh ( via google translate )

Jean Fox (on Grameen Danone Foods Ltd)

on the Wednesday, 2 December, 2009 - 14:58

To start sales in the rural area of Rangpur (north) while serving the local communities, Grameen Danone Foods has signed a partnership with CARE Bangladesh (all info on this new partner on their site). Care Bangladesh has, in recent years developed a sales program in rural areas which aims to provide employment to women among the poorest in the community: the 1500 network Aparajita (Bengali literally "those who Never Give Up ") are already distributing products that improve hygiene and living conditions in rural Bangladesh.

Interview of Gregor Reid

Gwenael Gaigeard (on Grameen Danone Foods Ltd)

on the Monday, 26 January, 2009 - 10:13