Oikos Pro vs Chobani, and What It Says About the Yogurt Aisle
In 2005, a guy who grew up making yogurt by hand on his family's farm in Turkey got a piece of junk mail. An 84 year old Kraft yogurt plant for sale, sitting there shut down.
He'd already spent a couple of years on a feta cheese business that was struggling. His lawyer told him not to buy the plant. If Kraft couldn't make yogurt work here, what shot did he have?
That guy was Hamdi Ulukaya. He took out an SBA loan and bought it anyway, then brought in a master yogurt maker from Turkey. He spent the next two years getting the recipe right.
That recipe became Chobani.
Greek yogurt wasn't new, but he's the one who took it from a specialty item to about half the yogurt aisle.
Which brings me to my fridge, and probably yours.
We have all sorts of yogurt in our house. Chobani, Oikos, Kirkland. Dana loves a noosa yoghurt as a treat (who doesn't?). Whenever I see Mylo crushing a cup of any of these brands (plus a boat load of fruit) and asking for more, I remember how much I loved yogurt as a kid, too.
But yogurt was different then. You didn't think about it much. The options were few, and looking back, they weren't great. But it was yogurt. You grabbed one and moved on. Now I stand there reading the front of the tub like a supplement label. 20g protein. Zero sugar. Greek this or that.
Yogurt quietly became a huge category. And with it, a really competitive one.
Back in June, it spilled over. Danone took Chobani to court over its Oikos Pro line, claiming Chobani's "20g Protein" tubs only have about 18 grams once you use the FDA's standard serving size. Two of the biggest yogurt companies in America, in federal court, over two grams on a lid.
And it's not the first time. Danone has taken Chobani to court at least four times in about a decade. A yogurt ad back in 2016. A sugar claim on a kids' drink in 2019. Cold brew packaging last year. Now the protein math.
When the cold brew suit hit, Chobani didn't hold back. They called it an attempt to "weaponize trademark law against a superior competitor."
Strip away the specifics and every one of these fights is about the same thing. What you're allowed to put on the front of the tub. The number, the claim, the thing that makes you grab it before you've read anything else.
I don't know who's right. Standing there holding a couple of tubs though, I can't always tell how much of that front label is for me as the customer, and how much is just about winning the aisle.
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