Grameen Danone Foods has placed social and environmental concerns at the heart of its business model. Although the company has to be profitable – profits from the first plants are needed to finance the construction of new plants – the success of the project will above all be judged on non-financial criteria: the number of direct and indirect jobs created (milk producers, small wholesalers, door to
door sellers), improvements to children's health, protection of the environment etc…
Combining the expertise of Danone in health foods and the experience of Grameen in micro-credits for deprived populations, in November 2006, Grameen Danone Foods launched a yoghurt called Shoktidoi, designed to provide a response to the nutritional needs of Bangladeshi children at an affordable price. Produced in the first Grameen Danone Foods plant in Bogra, inaugurated by Nobel laureate and Grameen’s CEO, Muhammad Yunus, Danone CEO Franck Riboud, and French soccer star Zinédine Zidane, Shoktidoi is sold at a price of 10 BDT for each portion of 50g (ie 6 euro cents) and can be bought regularly by even the poorest families. At the same time, its composition has been specially designed to make up for the nutritional deficiencies that many Bangladeshi children suffer from. Reduced from cow's milk produced locally and date molasses, Shokti doi contains the natural calcium proteins needed for growth and bone solidity. Also enriched in micronutrients, an 50 gram pot is enough to cover 30% of daily needs for a child in vitamin A , iron, zinc and iodine. At the beginning of 2007, the independent NGO, GAIN, launched a trial designed to measure the benefits obtained from regular consumption of Shokti doi. The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition is an NGO whose purpose is to improve the nutritional standards of deprived communities. The whole of the production and distribution system of Grameen Danone Foods has been constructed with the clear objective of creating as many jobs as possible within the local community. In the Bogra plant, use of machinery is kept to a minimum in order to promote the use of labour which should mean that the plant will be able to employ 50 full-time workers within four years. Grameen Danone foods also relies on developing micro-farms which supply the raw materials (milk, sugar, date molasses) used to produce Shoktidoi. Local farmers also benefit from micro-credits offered by the Grameen Bank to start up or expand their businesses, while Danone provides its expertise to help farmers improve the quality of their production. Lastly, Grameen Danone Foods has created an original distribution system based on the so-called "Grameen Ladies" who, supplied by small wholesalers, make sales door-to-door. This activity should provide income to more than 1,600 persons within a radius of 30 km around the plant. Protection of the environment for local communities and use of renewable energy are part of the community business model developed by Grameen Danone Foods. The Bogra plant for example has a solar water heater which supplies hot water used in cleaning the installation and preheating water for the main boilers. To reduce the risk of depleting groundwater levels, the site has also been equipped with a rainwater recovery system. Both of these measures help mitigate the environmental impact of the project but also the energy bill for the company! In terms of recycling and packaging, Grameen Danone has also made firm commitments: Shoktidoi pots are produced with PLA (Poly Lactic Acid), a material made of cornstarch and entirely biodegradable.
