Notable Edibles:
The Greek Yogurt Gods Smile on Upstate Dairy Farms
First published in the March-April 2012 edition of Edible Manhattan
9 comments so far | March 5, 2012 | By Kristina Strain | Photographs by Heather Ainsworth for Chobani
It’s been a year since upstate upstart Chobani surpassed Dannon to become the number one yogurt manufacturer in the country, and the Greek-style yogurt outfit credits its prosperity to a single ingredient: “Having access to such quality milk is instrumental to our success,” says Nicki Briggs, Chobani director of communications. “Central New York has the best milk in the country.” Launched without a pilot study or sales research, Chobani was instead born of one man’s craving. When Turkey native Hamdi Ulukaya immigrated to America to study business at SUNY Albany, he was dismayed at the lack of good yogurt and cheese in his supermarket. Sure, top-tier niche products could be found in specialty stores, but Ulukaya got inspired to bring high-quality, price-competitive dairy products to the mainstream market. When a flier for a recently shuttered Kraft plant south of Utica crossed his desk, he pounced. “He went to see it and bought it almost on the spot,” Briggs says. This was 2005. Ulukaya set straight to work updating the 1920s-era building and meeting with area milk suppliers; by August 2007, when he brought his first half-pallet of samples here to Manhattan, he went back with orders from a few kosher groceries as well as from Fairway, D’Agostino and Fresh Direct. Chobani’s growth curve soon went vertical. (A year later, Greece-based Fage opened its first American plant—also in upstate New York, likewise lured by the proximity to both magnificent milk and tens of millions of hungry customers.) Since then Chobani has gone from six employees to 900; from insignificant to industry leader. Today Chobani ships more than 500,000 cases per week. “It really flies off the shelves,” says Michael Sinatra, public affairs manager at Whole Foods Market. “Even though it’s available nationally now, it’s nice that it’s still a local product for us.”
To say it’s also nice for struggling upstate dairy farmers would be an extreme understatement. In an agricultural industry undergoing considerable economic hardship, the Greek yogurt boom is regarded as a godsend.
“[Chobani] uses almost 3 million pounds of milk daily,” says Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. “This has allowed our upstate farmers to expand and grow.”
Categories: March-April 2012, Notable Edibles
I work for Dannon and the first sentence of this article is not correct. While Chobani is indeed the largest brand of Greek yogurt it is by no means the largest. My company, Dannon, and another, General Mills, which makes Yoplait, are considerably larger and make a wide variety of yogurts in addition to just Greek yogurt.
The other missed reality here is that, to the best of my knowledge, NO premium is paid to dairy farmers who provide milk to Chobani. If “quality milk is instrumental to our success” why are they not paying the farmers a fair price for their milk? At nearly $2 in some locations for 6 ounces of yogurt you’d think they would consider paying a little more to the families who work 7 days a week insuring their supply demands are met.
Dan, you are right. NY’s dairy farmers are the lowest paid in the entire Northeast. Farmers in Pennsylvania are paid $1.00 more for a hundred pounds of milk than we in NY are, and New England dairy farmers even more. NY offers the cheapest milk in the northeast. We dairy farmers have no coutervailing power to bargain with the big companies whatsoever. Binghamton TV at www.WBNG.com just did a segment on this problem (seen in their video section). We’re glad Chobani and Fage are here in NY. NY has 5,400 dairy farms averaging about 95 cows, very family oriented, but very little compensation. I love Chobani, but I do get kind of sad when I read about all the money the big companies make and the farm families I know can’t afford health insurance, dental care or heating oil.
Mjneuwirth:
http://adage.com/article/cmo-interviews/dannon-s-greek-yogurt-oikos-sights-set-1-chobani/230009/ I’m not sure who’s right about the size and industry ranking of Chobani, but this is where I sourced the statistic I quoted in the article.
copy & paste these into your browser if you want to know the potential consequences of such rapid success and expansion:
http://thedailystar.com/localnews/x1083696531/Agro-Farma-faces-fines-for-water-use/print
http://thedailystar.com/localnews/x1125105293/State-begins-probe-of-Unadilla-River-mussel-kill/print
Reading this gives me knots in my stomach. He is another well paid processor and we just keep at making milk for pretty much what it costs to produce it. New York dairymen have no angle with this guy whatsoever. That is most likely why this man put his latest plant in Idaho not here in the east. :/ He is here to do business not be our buddy. He gets his milk very cheap in this state.
Kristina, the point I was trying to make it that the chart from AdAge is about individual brands, not companies. The Dannon Company makes a wide variety of different types of yogurt for a wide variety of personal preferences, including Activia, Light & Fit, Danimals, Oikos Greek, Dan-o-nino, Pure and of course of our Dannon brand. While we don’t release company sales data, it is safe to say that The Dannon Company is considerably larger than any single brand of Greek yogurt. I hope this helps to clarify.
Mr. Ulukaya’s marketing savvy is so revealing. He understood that the American consumer would not respond to Turkish-style yogurt, although that is what it is; likewise with gyro/doner, shish-kebab (turkish for meat on a skewer). Interesting what it says about our true knowledge of the origins of world foods.
Read, “Whitewashed: The Disturbing Truth About Cow’s Milk and Your Health” by Joseph Keon and then decide whether we should be furthering the dairy industry through purchasing dairy products, no matter what the brand. Did you know there’s an “allowable” amount of pus, yes pus, in milk products? Check out the table in this book and see what is actually in the dairy products on our store shelves simply due to what is in the cow’s milk, almond or coconut milks are much better choices.