Yogurt Start-up About to Face New Goliath
After watching the success of Chobani and Fage, PepsiCo seeks opportunity for itself.
Flickr/messycupcakes
Chobani, the Greek yogurt maker created by Hamdi Ulukaya, has already garnered plenty of attention for its fresh approach to yogurt--and its $600 million in sales.
Now it seems some big rivals have been paying attention.
After watching Chobani and Fage carve out niches of the roughly $7 billion U.S. yogurt market--traditionally dominated by Dannon and Yoplait--PepsiCo is about to join the fray in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states through a partnership with Theo Muller, the New York Times reports.
With PepsiCo seeking to diversify further beyond soda and chips, the two companies are investing $206 million in a Batavia, New York, plant, which will employ 180 people and produce 5 billion cups of yogurt a year, reports the Times.
The Muller by Quaker yogurts will come in conventional and Greek varieties, in untraditional square packaging with mix-ins such as chocolate, granola, and caramelized almonds, in addition to more common fruit flavors, the paper reports.
