Chr. Hansen recognized as Best in Quality

The Dannon Company and Danone, Inc. (Canada) have hosted several business partners to award the annual Dannon/Danone Supplier of the Year Awards. Chr. Hansen was recognized among the winners for their important contribution to Dannon’s business in the category of Best in Quality.

Suppliers were assessed on a number of criteria including improvements in environmental sustainability, quality and safety, improvements in cost, accelerating ‘time to market’ of new or renovated products, boosts to innovation, protection of competitive advantage, and the demonstration of shared values in the relationship with Dannon and Danone.

Nominees for the Awards were evaluated by a cross-functional taskforce at Dannon/Danone and the final selection of Award winners was made by the company’s Executive Management Team.

“It is the philosophy of Danone and Dannon that the Sourcing and Supplier Development teams enhance the relationship with our business partners,” said David Lainchbury, Vice President of Sourcing and Supplier Development for Danone’s dairy business in North America. “Rather than examining only cost or the transactional value of our relationships, we look at total value creation. We know that innovative solutions will come not only from within Dannon or Danone but also externally via our business partners. Through closer working relationships and by recognizing the contribution of our partners it is an on-going evolution of the traditional purchasing function.”

“We have tremendous respect for our business partners and are grateful for the contributions they make to our success,” said Lainchbury.

The Supplier of the Year Awards is representative of Dannon’s and Danone’s progressive thinking to reward beyond a traditional, transactional dollar-based methodology.

“Quality and consistency are built into everything we do at Chr. Hansen. We are very proud to receive this honor from Danone and Dannon,” says Mike Neu, Senior Vice President, Cultures & Enzymes at Chr. Hansen, Inc.