DSM
DSM is a global purpose-led, science-based company specializing in Nutrition, Health & Sustainable Living. Our purpose is to create brighter lives for all. We achieve it by using all the scientific and innovation power at our disposal to tackle some of the world’s greatest challenges - creating value for customers, shareholders, our people, and society-at-large. A short decade ago the general belief was that as a company you either focused on driving profit or safeguarding the planet - but not both. In the intervening years we’ve proved again and again here at DSM that it really is possible to do well by doing good. After all, why achieve commercial success in a world that fails? It’s a belief that every one of our 23,000 people worldwide holds dear - and delivers on each and every day across the fields of Nutrition & Health, Climate & Energy and Resources & Circularity.
Company details
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- Business Type:
- Manufacturer
- Industry Type:
- Medical / Health Care
- Market Focus:
- Globally (various continents)
- Year Founded:
- 1902
- Employees:
- Over 1000
- Turnover:
- more than 1,000,000,000 €
Who we are
In fact, we’re so passionate about building a better world that our company strategy is aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (five in particular) that were adopted by the United Nations in 2015.
It’s the best way we know of ensuring that we keep growing, and that our bright science continues to create solutions that make life brighter for people everywhere - both today and for generations to come.
Company Strategy
Creating value for everyone
Our strategy centers on our continuing evolution towards being a Nutrition, Health and Sustainable Living company. The title, 'Growth & Value - Purpose-led, Performance-driven', speaks for itself. We want to continue generating value for all our stakeholders – from customers and shareholders to employees, and society-at-large.
Purpose-led, science-based
With our long-term strategy, we are continuing our evolution as a purpose-led, science-based company operating in the fields of Nutrition, Health and Sustainable Living. Our strong growth capacity is anchored in developing customer-centric, innovative solutions addressing Nutrition & Health, Climate & Energy, and Resources & Circularity. At the same time, we are increasing operational excellence, managing costs, and accelerating profit growth and cash generation.
Nutrition
In Nutrition, we focus on human nutrition & health (specialty nutrition, nutritional ingredients, consumer-branded products, personalized nutrition), food & beverages (specialty food enzymes, cultures, probiotics, bio-preservation, hydrocolloids, sugar reduction, and savory taste solutions), personal care and aroma ingredients and animal nutrition & health (core vitamins, premix solutions, and specialty feed additive solutions, including mycotoxin risk management solutions and diagnostics).
Materials
In Materials, we will further develop into a resilient higher-growth, high-margin specialty business, and focus on three Sustainable Living growth-platforms Improved Health & Living, Green Products & Applications, and New Mobility & Connectivity.
Evolution continues
We continue with our approach of actively managing our businesses and have continued to grow with the recent acquisitions of the Erber Group (animal nutrition) and Royal CSK (dairy cultures), strengthening and developing critical capabilities and to support organic growth, predominantly in Nutrition. Similarly, as another step forward in DSM’s evolution, we recently sold our resins businesses for an equity value of €1.6 billion.
Sustainable Development Goals
We’re so convinced of the value of doing well by doing good that our strategy is aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) outlined by the United Nations in 2015.
We contribute to all 17 SDGS by improving the impact of our own operations, enabling sustainable solutions for our customers, and advocating sustainable business models. We strive to deliver on five in particular:
Our Heritage
An ever-ambitious company
At DSM, reinvention is in our blood (we are a science company, after all). From the depths of the Dutch State Mines over a century ago we’ve transformed ourselves into something truly bright: a global science-based company specializing in ensuring the world is healthier, happier and safer. And we’re still evolving….
DSM was established in 1902 by the Dutch government to mine coal reserves in the Southern Province of Limburg. To this day we still use the English translation (Dutch State Mines) of the company's original name, De Nederlandse Staatsmijnen. Now, however, it has a more relevant (albeit less formal) meaning for our people: Doing Something Meaningful.
We’ve always been an ambitious company. Our evolution has continued unabated after we closed the last coal mine in the early 70s. In the past 20 years we transformed once again, as we began to focus more on creating science-based solutions in health, nutrition and sustainable living.
At the end of the 20th century, DSM entered biotechnology with the acquisition of Gist-brocades. This marked the start of a major period of transformation and was followed by the sale of our petrochemical activities to Sabic in 2002 and the acquisition of Roche Vitamins & Fine Chemicals in 2003. In the following years, DSM further focused and streamlined its portfolio with the acquisition of the waterborne resins business of NeoResins, followed by further acquisitions in human nutrition (Martek, Fortitech); animal nutrition (Tortuga); and biomedical (Kensey Nash) - to name just a few.
Today, our acquisitions are an integral part of DSM, providing scientific solutions that solve real problems for the world.
On our journey of transformation we’ve been fortunate to work with a vast array of organizations and partners. In nutrition, we began a global partnership with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in 2007 (the largest provider of food aid to the world’s hungry), which is still going stronger than ever; and we are now working with Cargill to help reduce the world’s sugar consumption.
We work with organizations like the World Bank Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition to advocate a price on carbon and greater use of renewable energy, such as solar power, biofuels and biogas, all of which use DSM solutions. Meanwhile when it comes to reducing waste we’re working with organizations like the Ellen MacArthur Foundation to find new circular solutions.