By bizn_fun 
Croda was founded in 1925 when George Crowe and Henry Dawe began producing lanolin, a waxy substance made from sheep’s wool.
Their first home was a disused waterworks in Rawcliffe Bridge, near Goole.
They soon expanded into other products and moved their headquarters to nearby Cowick Hall, a stately home in East Cowick.
Today, the house is flanked by newer laboratories and office buildings, but it is still surrounded by acres of green parkland.
The modern-day business produces ingredients for skincare, pharmaceutical, homecare and agricultural products.
At the foot of the grand staircase, Sandra Breene, president of consumer care, suggests many people will not “go a day without using a product that has some Croda ingredients in”.
At the time when Croda began developing Lorenzo’s oil, it supplied products for various industries, but did not have a healthcare or pharmaceutical division.
“It wasn’t an area that we worked in before,” Mr Layden says.
“We started thinking about how our materials could be used in those sorts of areas.
“There was a lot of euphoria in Croda with the film coming out. And so we decided to set up a healthcare division of Croda about 1997 and over the last 30 years that’s become a very significant part of our business.
“We had some significant successes which have benefited many hundreds of millions of people, most noticeably few years ago during the Covid pandemic where we were an integral part of the production and manufacture of the first MRNA-based vaccine.”