Nutricia

At Nutricia, we work to serve the patients who depend on us, through healthcare professionals and other caregivers, by developing and delivering specialised nutrition for many conditions and situations. We have been the pioneers of Advanced Medical Nutrition in Europe, and we are rapidly expanding our services for patients across the world. Nutricia is a specialised unit of the international food company Danone.
As a recognised leader in specialised nutrition, Nutricia has a mission to lead the use of Advanced Medical Nutrition in disease management. We have developed a broad and unique portfolio of products for many classes of patients, and we seek to provide solutions and services wherever nutritional intervention can be shown to improve clinical outcomes. In partnership with doctors, healthcare professionals and caregivers, we work to make a real difference in people’s lives by speeding recovery and encouraging independence.

Products developed by our ground-breaking science teams have long been used to help people who cannot eat, who lack specific nutrients or who have special nutritional needs. The specialised nutrition of today can also help alleviate disease symptoms, or even delay the progression of disease in patients. Our ambition is to deliver only proven benefits through nutrition, as an integral part of disease treatment.

Nutricia has a proud heritage that stretches back over 100 years. Founded in the Netherlands in the town of Zoetermeer, the company was originally a specialist in infant formulas. Laboratory-synthesised baby milk was produced to match the nutritional needs of different babies. But in 1905 Nutricia pioneered the concept of specialised medical nutrition, developing special diet products such as low-sugar milk for diabetic patients and iodine-rich milk for those suffering from goitre

In the modern era, Nutricia focused more intensely on the development of research based nutritional products. In 1946, it opened its first proprietary research department within its laboratories. Dietitians were hired in 1950 to provide medical information to doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals. Scientific advances of the 1960s led to development of specialised nutritional products for hospitals, and the introduction of Nutri 2000 – a complete nutrition solution for the chronically ill with serious feeding problems.

In the 1990s, Nutricia acquired the highly specialised firms SHS International (UK) and Milupa (Germany), gaining new expertise in areas such as Inborn Metabolic Disorders and severe Cow’s Milk Allergy. With the UK baby food brand Cow & Gate, these businesses were brought together under the umbrella of Numico. Numico was acquired in 2007 by Danone. Nutricia’s Human Nutrition Research team, now part of Danone Research, is one of the largest in the world, with over 200 nutritional scientists, molecular biologists and chemists, all working to keep our innovations at the forefront of medical nutrition.