Danisco
The company's activities were structured into two lines of business: Food Ingredients and Industrial enzymes. The Food Ingredients business supplied bio-based ingredients for food and beverage products and comprises the business segments Enablers, Cultures, and Sweeteners, 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 and carbohydrate 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 biofuels joint venture with DuPont, and a project with Goodyear to develop a new type of synthetic rubber, called bioIsoprene. 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 additives and enzymes used in biofuels." 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'. A considerable number of the employees are engaged in research and development of new products for the international food industry. Today, the Group holds more than 9,300 active patents and patent applications. Their work led to the understanding of the mechanism of CRISPR, the bacterial antiviral defense. CRISPR is a prokaryotic immune system that is both adaptive and inheritable.
Activities
Danisco A/S is a Danish bio-based company with activities in food production, enzymes and other bioproducts as well as a wide variety of pharmaceutical grade excipients.