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Happy birthday Eurofins !
Expected turnover of €450 million in 2007, over 6000 employees in 24 countries : it only took twenty years – just 7300 days – for the founders of Eurofins to break out of their small lab at the Faculty of Science in Nantes and stand out as one of the world leaders in bio-analysis.
In 1987, in a chemistry laboratory at Nantes University, two researchers with an international reputation, Gérard and Maryvonne Martin, developed a revolutionary method that enables sugar added fraudulently to wine to be detected. They were able very quickly to see the scope of their discovery, and its economic potential. At the time their son Gilles was studying in the United States. His parents convinced him to join them in Nantes to help them exploit their invention. The Nantes site just keeps on growing (from 4 employees in 1987 to 210 today), while the company, with its controlled and well-judged external growth strategy, has given way to an international group.
At the heart of this success lies the priority given to research and the take-over of the most advanced laboratories. This enables the group to deal with all problems related to food quality and safety: mad cow disease, bird flu, genetically modified corn, and so on. From food crises to environmental emergencies, Eurofins is present on all fronts and markets its tests to the four corners of the globe. Its most recent acquisition is that of the Scandinavian company Lantmännen Analycen (400 people). This buy-out will enable Eurofins to become the number one in the food and environmental analysis market in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. The Nantes site, which is the cradle of the company, is also one of the best scientific symbols of the group which is getting ready to develop new services with high added value, in domains such as legal expertise, food safety or even the automation of analysis processes. Moreover, there are some signs that do not lie: the company celebrated its anniversary on a site with temporary prefabricated buildings and on a site that was just beginning. One thing is clear: at 20 years of age, Eurofins Nantes is just starting to grow… | 
