Danisco A/S is a Danish bio-based company with activities in

food production The food industry is a complex, global network of diverse businesses that supplies most of the food consumed by the world's population. The food industry today has become highly diversified, with manufacturing ranging from small, traditional, ...

enzyme Enzymes () are proteins that act as biological catalysts by accelerating chemical reactions. The molecules upon which enzymes may act are called substrates, and the enzyme converts the substrates into different molecules known as products ...

s and other

bioproducts Bioproducts or bio-based products are materials, chemicals and energy derived from renewable biological resources. Bioresources Biological resources include agriculture, forestry, and biologically-derived waste, and there are many other renewable ...

as well as a wide variety of pharmaceutical grade

excipient An excipient is a substance formulated alongside the active ingredient of a medication, included for the purpose of long-term stabilization, bulking up solid formulations that contain potent active ingredients in small amounts (thus often referred ...

s. It was formed in 1989 from the largest Danish industrial merger ever of the two old C.F. Tietgen companies Danish Sugar (founded 1872), and Dansk Handels- og Industri Company (Danisco A/S).Nordic Sugar History
Shared history Danisco is one of the world's leading producers of ingredients for food and other consumer products and was also one of the biggest sugar producers in Europe until the divestment of its sugar division to

Nordzucker Nordzucker AG, headquartered in Braunschweig, Germany, is Europe’s second largest sugar manufacturer. The production of sugar, liquid sugars and other specialities for the application in the nutrition, beverage and sweets industry as well a ...

Nordzucker completes acquisition of Danisco Sugar and significantly expands market position
, Braunschweig / Copenhagen 03.03.09. in 2009. Headquartered in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan a ...

, the group has approximately 6,800 employees in more than 80 locations in 40 countries. Danisco shares were listed on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange and a member of the blue chip

OMX Copenhagen 20 The OMX Copenhagen 25 (), formerly KFX and OMXC20) is the top-tier stock market index In finance, a stock index, or stock market index, is an index that measures a stock market, or a subset of the stock market, that helps investors compare cu ...

index until June 2011, when

DuPont DuPont de Nemours, Inc., commonly shortened to DuPont, is an American multinational chemical company first formed in 1802 by French-American chemist and industrialist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours. The company played a major role in ...

completed a US$6.3 billion acquisition of the company.

Activities

The company's activities were structured into two lines of business:

Food Ingredients Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is ...

and

Industrial enzymes Industrial enzymes are enzymes that are commercially used in a variety of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemical production, biofuels, food & beverage, and consumer products. Due to advancements in recent years, biocatalysis through isolated ...

. The Food Ingredients business supplied bio-based ingredients for food and beverage products and comprises the business segments Enablers, Cultures, and Sweeteners,Danisco A/S Snapshot
Corporate Information while the Industrial Enzymes business (handled by subsidiary Genencor) focuses on industrial biotechnology and encompasses business segments such as Fabric and Household Care (enzymes for laundry and dishwashing detergents), Technical Enzymes (enzymes for

bioethanol Ethanol (abbr. EtOH; also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound. It is an alcohol with the chemical formula . Its formula can be also written as or (an ethyl group linked to a hyd ...

and

carbohydrate In organic chemistry, a carbohydrate () is a biomolecule consisting of carbon (C), hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) atoms, usually with a hydrogen–oxygen atom ratio of 2:1 (as in water) and thus with the empirical formula (where ''m'' may o ...

processing as well as textile treatment), and Food and Animal Nutrition (enzymes for bread, feed, and brewing applications). Danisco also had two biochemical projects: DuPont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol LLC, a

biofuel Biofuel is a fuel that is produced over a short time span from biomass, rather than by the very slow natural processes involved in the formation of fossil fuels, such as oil. According to the United States Energy Information Administration ...

s joint venture with

, and a project with Goodyear to develop a new type of

synthetic rubber A synthetic rubber is an artificial elastomer. They are polymers synthesized from petroleum byproducts. About 32-million metric tons of rubbers are produced annually in the United States, and of that amount two thirds are synthetic. Synthetic rubb ...

, called bioIsoprene.BioIsoprene
Goodyear concept tire with BioIsoprene technology wins ‘Environmental Achievement of the Year’ award. On 9 January 2011, DuPont announced that it had reached agreement to buy Danisco for US$6.3 billion. The acquisition was motivated by a desire by DuPont "to gain production of

food additive Food additives are substances added to food to preserve Taste, flavor or enhance taste, appearance, or other sensory qualities. Some additives have been used for centuries as part of an effort to preserve food, for example vinegar (pickling), sal ...

s and enzymes used in

s." On 16 May 2011 DuPont announced that its tender offer for Danisco had been successful and that it would proceed to redeem the remaining shares and delist the company. The food ingredients and enzyme businesses were combined with similar pre-existing efforts at DuPont into two business divisions named 'Nutrition and Health' and 'Industrial Biotechnologies'.

Research and development

A considerable number of the employees are engaged in research and development of new products for the international food industry.Danisco A/S Company Profile
Reference For Business Today, the Group holds more than 9,300 active patents and patent applications.Danisco In Brief
Danisco Publication Their work led to the understanding of the mechanism of

CRISPR CRISPR () (an acronym for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) is a family of DNA sequences found in the genomes of prokaryotic organisms such as bacteria and archaea. These sequences are derived from DNA fragments of bact ...

, the bacterial antiviral defense.CRISPR Provides Acquired Resistance Against Viruses in Prokaryotes
/ref> CRISPR is a prokaryotic immune system that is both adaptive and inheritable.

References

External links

* {{Authority control DuPont subsidiaries Manufacturing companies based in Copenhagen Danish companies established in 1989 2011 mergers and acquisitions Food processing in Copenhagen