Royal DSM is a global science-based company active in health, nutrition and materials. Through its two food-focused business units – DSM Nutrition & Health and DSM Food Specialties – the company delivers innovative business solutions that meet its customers’ ongoing needs.

DSM was established in 1902 as a state-owned coal mining company and has reinvented itself several times since, selling almost all of its commodity chemicals activities and becoming a life sciences and materials company during the last 20 years. In 2012, DSM bought the cultures and probiotics business of Cargill – and subsequently offloaded its cultures unit to Lallemand four years later – before shifting its focus to targeted nutrition.

More recently, it has taken stakes in both the UP4 probiotic brand and the food-tech upstart Mixfit. It is based in Heerlen, in Limburg.