Chobani is an American food and beverage company best known for popularising Greek-style yogurt in the United States. Founded in 2005 by Turkish-American entrepreneur Hamdi Ulukaya, Chobani began as a small yogurt operation in upstate New York and grew into one of America’s best-known yogurt brands. The company has since expanded beyond yogurt into oat milk, creamers, plant-based products, snacks, and coffee.

Some corporate details have changed over time; Chobani is privately held, so detailed current financial information is less publicly available than for a listed company.

Founding — 2005

Chobani’s story begins with Hamdi Ulukaya, who was born and raised in a dairy-farming family in eastern Turkey. After moving to the United States, Ulukaya became interested in bringing the type of thick, strained yogurt he remembered from Turkey to American consumers.

In 2005, Ulukaya came across an advertisement for a shuttered yogurt factory in South Edmeston, New York, formerly operated by Kraft. He purchased the plant with the help of a Small Business Administration loan and began building a new yogurt company.1

The company was initially known as Agro-Farma. Ulukaya and a small team spent roughly 18 months developing the yogurt recipe before launching the Chobani brand.

Launch — 2007

The first Chobani yogurt reached store shelves in 2007, initially in Long Island, New York. The product was positioned as a thick, creamy, strained Greek-style yogurt with a focus on taste, protein and relatively simple ingredients.2

This entry was significant because the U.S. yogurt market at the time was dominated by more traditional, thinner American-style yogurt. Chobani helped turn Greek yogurt from a relatively niche product into a mainstream category.3

Rapid Growth — 2009–2010

Chobani’s growth accelerated rapidly. In 2009, larger supermarket and warehouse retailers began carrying the brand, including Stop & Shop, ShopRite, BJ’s and Costco. By 2010, Chobani had become the No. 1-selling Greek yogurt brand in America.4

The company achieved this growth without following the traditional playbook of established consumer-goods companies. Sampling, social media, direct consumer engagement and relatively accessible pricing became important parts of its brand-building strategy.

The name Chobani is associated with the Turkish word çoban, meaning “shepherd.” The name reflects Ulukaya’s rural upbringing and the company’s connection to traditional dairy culture. Chobani’s own materials describe the name as being inspired by the Turkish word for shepherd.

The name also helped differentiate the company from conventional American dairy brands and communicate its Turkish/Greek-style yogurt heritage.

Chobani’s success was not simply about selling yogurt. The company combined several ideas that were relatively unusual in the U.S. yogurt market at the time:

• Greek-style yogurt: Straining removes much of the liquid whey, producing a thicker texture and generally higher protein concentration than conventional yogurt.
• Premium positioning at mass-market prices: Chobani attempted to make Greek yogurt widely accessible rather than limiting it to specialty food stores.
• Simple, recognizable branding: Its packaging and advertising emphasized fruit, natural ingredients and an approachable food aesthetic.
• Health and nutrition: Protein became a major selling point.
• Flavor variety: Chobani expanded beyond plain yogurt into numerous fruit and flavored varieties.
• Sampling and direct marketing: The company famously used extensive product sampling to introduce consumers to Greek yogurt.
• Purpose-driven corporate identity: Chobani increasingly associated itself with ideas such as community development, inclusion and access to nutritious food.

Although yogurt remains the foundation of Chobani, the company has expanded considerably.

1. Greek Yogurt

This remains Chobani’s signature category. Products include traditional Greek yogurt, flavored varieties, high-protein products and other yogurt formats. Chobani’s original growth came from making Greek yogurt accessible to mainstream American consumers. Its success helped create a much larger U.S. market for Greek yogurt.

2. Plant-Based Yogurt

Chobani expanded into non-dairy and plant-based yogurt, targeting consumers who avoid dairy or prefer plant-based foods.5

3. Oat Milk

The company expanded into plant-based beverages, particularly oat milk, broadening Chobani from a yogurt company into a wider food-and-beverage brand.

4. Coffee Creamers

Chobani has also developed coffee creamers, using its dairy and plant-based expertise to enter another large refrigerated beverage/coffee-adjacent category.

5. Coffee

A major strategic expansion occurred in 2023, when Chobani acquired La Colombe Coffee Roasters. The acquisition brought coffee into Chobani’s portfolio and gave the company exposure to ready-to-drink coffee and café products.

This acquisition was significant because it demonstrated that Chobani’s ambition had evolved beyond being simply a yogurt company.

La Colombe Coffee Roasters was acquired by Chobani in 2023 in a transaction reported at approximately $900 million. The deal expanded Chobani’s portfolio into coffee and provided a complementary brand with expertise in specialty coffee and ready-to-drink beverages.

Following the acquisition, Chobani’s broader portfolio could be viewed as spanning several major food-and-beverage occasions: breakfast, yogurt, plant-based beverages, coffee, snacks, and everyday beverages.

One of the most distinctive aspects of Chobani is its emphasis on purpose-driven business. Chobani describes its food philosophy using the acronym DNNA: Delicious, Nutritious, Natural and Accessible. The company’s stated mission is essentially to make good food available to more people while contributing positively to communities.

This philosophy is closely associated with Ulukaya’s leadership. He has argued that businesses can simultaneously pursue commercial success and positive social impact.

Chobani has made employee ownership and inclusion important parts of its corporate identity. In 2016, the company announced that it would give employees an ownership stake equivalent to approximately 10% of the company. The move was widely viewed as an unusual approach for a privately held consumer-goods company.

The company has also promoted initiatives involving refugee and immigrant employment, community development, child hunger, local farmers, employee opportunity, sustainability, and support for underrepresented communities. These initiatives are part of Ulukaya’s broader belief that businesses should contribute to the communities in which they operate.

Chobani’s manufacturing history is particularly important to the brand. Its first factory was the former Kraft yogurt plant in South Edmeston, New York, which Ulukaya purchased in 2005. The plant became the birthplace of Chobani’s Greek yogurt business.

The company later expanded its manufacturing footprint, including a major production facility in Twin Falls, Idaho, which opened in 2012. Chobani’s manufacturing strategy was important because the company needed to scale rapidly while maintaining control over product quality and production.

Chobani’s marketing is often cited as an important part of its success. Instead of relying exclusively on expensive traditional advertising, the company initially emphasised in-store sampling, social media, consumer interaction, attractive packaging, word-of-mouth marketing, product innovation, and strong visual branding.

One famous example was the CHOmobile, a Chobani sampling truck that traveled around the United States giving consumers free yogurt samples. This approach allowed a relatively young company to create consumer awareness without initially having the advertising budgets of much larger food corporations.

Chobani operates in highly competitive food and beverage markets. Its major competitors have included large dairy and yogurt companies such as General Mills (particularly through Yoplait), Danone (particularly through Oikos and other yogurt brands), private-label supermarket yogurt brands, and other Greek-yogurt and high-protein yogurt brands.

Chobani’s expansion into plant-based beverages and coffee also puts it into competition with companies outside the traditional yogurt industry.

Perhaps Chobani’s biggest historical contribution to the U.S. food industry was its role in the Greek-yogurt boom. Before Chobani’s rapid expansion, Greek yogurt represented a much smaller part of the American yogurt market. Chobani demonstrated that consumers would buy thick, strained yogurt at mass-market scale.

According to the company’s historical filings, Chobani’s yogurt business reached approximately $1.1 billion in net sales in 2013, illustrating how quickly the category had grown. The company later described itself as the No. 1 yogurt brand in the United States by 2020.

Unlike many major American food companies, Chobani is privately held rather than publicly traded. This means there is no continuously traded Chobani stock ticker and less publicly disclosed financial information than there would be for a company such as General Mills or Danone. Hamdi Ulukaya remains the central figure in the company and has served as its founder and CEO.

Although Chobani was built in the United States, it has expanded internationally. Australia became an important early international market, with the first Chobani product sold there in 2011. Chobani Australia describes the Australian operation as an extension of the company’s philosophy around quality dairy, food and community. The company has subsequently developed a broader international presence, although the United States remains its core market.

Chobani’s brand identity can be summarised through several characteristics:

• Heritage: Turkish-inspired dairy traditions and Ulukaya’s upbringing.
• Accessibility: The idea that nutritious food should not be reserved for wealthy or niche consumers.
• Health: Protein, yogurt, natural ingredients and wellness.
• Modernity: Bright packaging, contemporary branding and frequent product innovation.
• Purpose: Community involvement, employee opportunity and social responsibility.
• Food Culture: Positioning yogurt and other products as enjoyable everyday foods rather than merely “health foods.”

Chobani’s success can largely be explained by the combination of timing, product differentiation and execution. When consumers were becoming increasingly interested in healthier and higher-protein foods, Chobani offered a product that was both nutritious and indulgent. It then put Greek yogurt into mainstream supermarkets at a price accessible to ordinary consumers.

The company also invested heavily in manufacturing capacity and distribution, allowing it to turn what began as a niche product into a national brand. Chobani itself describes its strategy as combining investment in people, plants and sales/distribution with rapid product innovation.

• 2005 — Hamdi Ulukaya purchases a shuttered yogurt factory in upstate New York and establishes the business.
• 2005–2007 — Ulukaya and his team develop the company’s Greek-yogurt recipe.
• 2007 — First Chobani yogurt is sold in Long Island, New York.
• 2009 — Major supermarket and warehouse retailers begin carrying Chobani.
• 2010 — Chobani becomes the No. 1-selling Greek yogurt brand in America.
• 2011 — Chobani enters Australia.
• 2012 — Chobani opens its Twin Falls, Idaho production facility.
• 2016 — Chobani announces an employee ownership program representing approximately 10% of the company.
• 2020 — Chobani reports that it is the No. 1 brand in the total U.S. yogurt category.
• 2023 — Chobani acquires La Colombe Coffee Roasters for approximately $900 million.
• 2020s — Chobani increasingly positions itself as a broader food-and-beverage company rather than solely a yogurt manufacturer.

Chobani started as a small Greek-yogurt company and became a major American food brand by making Greek yogurt mainstream. Its evolution followed a path from Turkish dairy heritage and an old New York yogurt factory to rapid U.S. growth, becoming a national food brand, and subsequently expanding into plant-based foods, beverages, and coffee.

What makes Chobani particularly interesting from a business perspective is that it didn’t just compete inside an existing yogurt market. It helped dramatically expand the Greek-yogurt category itself, then used the strength of the brand to move into adjacent categories. Today, Chobani is best understood not merely as a “yogurt company,” but as a privately held modern food-and-beverage company built around the idea of accessible, nutritious food. Its evolution from a 2005 startup to a major consumer brand is one of the more notable recent stories in the American packaged-food industry.

1. Chobani – WikiMili, The Best Wikipedia Reader
2. The Chobani Story – Chobani Australia
3. Our Journey, 2005–2017
4. Hamdi Ulukaya
5. Chobani