Mead Johnson Heritage
Mead Johnson Nutrition: A Century of Caring
Mead Johnson & Company was founded in 1905 in Jersey City, New Jersey, by Edward Mead Johnson, Sr. E. Mead launched his business after leaving Johnson & Johnson, which he had co-founded with his brothers.
Mead Johnson & Company introduced its first major infant feeding product in 1910 and followed it the next year with the product that would set the company on its path to leadership in infant and children's nutrition. A carbohydrate milk-modifier, Dextri-Maltose® became the first clinically supported, physician recommended infant feeding product in the United States.
In 1915, the company relocated to Evansville, Indiana to have better access to the raw materials needed to manufacture Dextri-Maltose.
Over the next several decades, Mead Johnson built upon its leadership in science-based nutrition, introducing many innovative infant feeding products while expanding into vitamins, pharmaceutical products, and enteral and parenteral nutrition.
Historic firsts in the U.S., some of the company's products brought such significant improvements in quality of life that they became cultural icons of their times. Others, developed in cooperation with clinicians and leading nutrition researchers, established a partnership between Mead Johnson and the scientific community that continues to this day.
Mead Johnson: A Global Company
Although Mead Johnson was founded in the United States and continues to maintain its worldwide headquarters there, it is a global company with more than 70 products in over 50 countries.
In fact, the company's global aspirations were launched long before the world was a place of true global commerce. Canada, which was assigned its first Mead Johnson sales representative in 1907, became the company's first market outside the U.S., with a separate Canadian organization established in 1922.
During the 1940s, Mead Johnson began establishing wholly-owned subsidiaries in Mexico and Latin America, where it had already been operating successful export businesses. That expansion continued, extending into Europe, Asia, and the Pacific Rim, until 1967, when the company was acquired by Bristol-Myers Company, which later merged with Squibb Corporation.
During the decades that followed, Mead Johnson's transformation into a global company continued. While market-specific products were developed to meet customers' needs in individual countries, existing products were expanded into new markets. During the same time, the Enfamil® name grew to be recognized worldwide for its family of infant nutritional products and for its leadership in pediatric nutrition.
Today, Mead Johnson's North American and international growth progresses, as the company continues to pursue innovation in science-based nutrition on behalf of infants, parents, and health care professionals throughout the world.