The Carasso family (also spelled Karasu, Karaso, Karassu, Karsu, Karso , Carrasco and Karasso) was a prominent Sephardic Jewish family in Ottoman Selanik (modern Thessaloniki, Greece). [1] In the early 20th century, some members of the family were active in the Young Turks and others went on to found the modern yogurt industry.
Notable members of the family include:
Yogurt is a food produced by bacterial fermentation of milk. The bacteria used to make yogurt are known as yogurt cultures. Fermentation of sugars in the milk by these bacteria produces lactic acid, which acts on milk protein to give yogurt its texture and characteristic tart flavor. Cow's milk is the milk most commonly used to make yogurt. Milk from water buffalo, goats, ewes, mares, camels, and yaks are also used to produce yogurt. The milk used may be homogenized or not. It may be pasteurized or raw. Each type of milk produces substantially different results.
Young Turks was a political reform movement in the early 20th century that favored the replacement of the Ottoman Empire's absolute monarchy with a constitutional government. They led a rebellion against the absolute rule of Sultan Abdulhamid II in the 1908 Young Turk Revolution. With this revolution, the Young Turks helped to establish the Second Constitutional Era in the same year, ushering in an era of multi-party democracy for the first time in the country's history.
Danone S.A. is a French multinational food-products corporation based in Paris. It was founded in 1919 in Barcelona, Spain. It is listed on Euronext Paris where it is a component of the CAC 40 stock market index. Some of the company's products are branded Dannon in the United States.
The House of Komnenos, Latinized as Comnenus, was a Byzantine Greek noble family who ruled the Byzantine Empire in the 11th and 12th centuries. The first reigning member, Isaac I Komnenos, ruled from 1057 to 1059. The family returned to power under Alexios I Komnenos in 1081 who established their rule for the following 104 years until it ended with Andronikos I Komnenos in 1185. In the 13th century, they founded and ruled the Empire of Trebizond, a Byzantine rump state from 1204 to 1461. At that time, they were commonly referred to as Grand Komnenoi, a style that was officially adopted and used by George Komnenos and his successors. Through intermarriages with other noble families, notably the Doukas, Angelos, and Palaiologos, the Komnenos name appears among most of the major noble houses of the late Byzantine world.
The history of the Jews in Turkey covers the 2400 years that Jews have lived in what is now Turkey.
Activia is a brand of yogurt owned by Groupe Danone and introduced in France in 1987. As of 2013, Activia is present in more than 70 countries and on 5 continents. Activia is classified as a functional food, designed to improve digestive health.
Isaac Carasso was a member of the prominent Sephardic Jewish Carasso (Karasu) family of Ottoman Salonica. After emigrating to Barcelona, he started a yogurt factory which later became Groupe Danone.
Stonyfield Farm, also simply called Stonyfield, is an organic yogurt maker and dairy company located in Londonderry, New Hampshire, United States. Stonyfield Farm was founded by Samuel Kaymen in 1983, on a 19th-century farmstead in Wilton, New Hampshire, as an organic farming school. The company makes the second leading brand of organic yogurt in North America, with 13.3% of the market.
Emmanuel Carasso or Emanuel Karasu was an Ottoman lawyer and a member of the prominent Sephardic Jewish Carasso family of Ottoman Salonica. He was also a prominent member of the Young Turks. The name is also spelled Karaso, Karassu, Karso, Karsu and Karasso. The form Karasu is a Turkification of his name, meaning literally 'dark water'. Emmanuel's nephew was the physician Isaac Carasso, also Salonica-born Sephardic Jew from the Ottoman Empire, who began producing Danone yogurt in Barcelona, Spain in 1919.
Daniel Carasso was a French member of the prominent Sephardic Jewish Carasso family and the son of Isaac Carasso, founder of the (now) multinational Danone.
The history of the Jews of Thessaloniki reaches back two thousand years. The city of Thessaloniki housed a major Jewish community, mostly Eastern Sephardim, until the middle of the Second World War. Sephardic Jews immigrated to the city following the expulsion of Jews from Spain by Catholic rulers under the Alhambra Decree of 1492. It is the only known example of a city of this size in the Jewish diaspora that retained a Jewish majority for centuries. This community influenced the Sephardic world both culturally and economically, and the city was nicknamed la madre de Israel.
Grameen Danone Foods, popularly known as Grameen Danone, is a social business enterprise, launched in 2006, which has been designed to provide children with many of the key nutrients that are typically missing from their diet in rural Bangladesh. It is run on 'No loss, No dividend' basis. Initially, Grameen Danone agreed to pay an annual dividend of one percent to shareholders, however, in December 2009, the board of Grameen Danone agreed to waive any monetary return.
Karasu, Kara-su, Kara su, Qarasu or Gharasu may refer to:
Albert Karasu or Carasso (1885–1982) was a Jewish-Turkish journalist born in Ottoman Salonica.
Lactalis is a French multinational dairy products corporation, owned by the Besnier family and based in Laval, Mayenne, France. The company's former name was Besnier SA.
By the time the Ottoman Empire rose to power in the 14th and 15th centuries, there had been Jewish communities established throughout the region. The Ottoman Empire lasted from the early 14th century until the end of World War I and covered parts of Southeastern Europe, Anatolia, and much of the Middle East. The experience of Jews in the Ottoman Empire is particularly significant because the region "provided a principal place of refuge for Jews driven out of Western Europe by massacres and persecution."
Brookside Dairy Limited, often referred to as Brookside Dairies, is a dairy processing company in Kenya, the largest economy in the East African Community. The company offers fresh pasteurized milk, cream, butter, yogurt, ghee, and long life milk products in Indian Ocean Islands, East Africa, Rwanda and Burundi. It provides products through distribution depots, agents, and sub agents to outlets in East Africa.