A Turkish immigrant from a poor shepherd family landed in the US at the age of 22

And created a multi billion $ yoghurt brand starting from a 80 year old to be defunct factory in just 5 years

A thread of Chobani

1/

1972 - Hamdi Ulukaya was born in a nomadic family in Turkey. During childhood, he raised goats and made cheese and yogurt with his family

He belonged to the Kurdish community which was a repeated target of sectarian violence in Turkey

2/

1994 - He moved to the US to attend Adelphi University to study English. In 1997, he transferred to SUNY Albany to study business

He worked part time at a professor's dairy farm to meet his expenses

3/

2002 - seeing that quality of cheese in the US is much interior to what was produced in Turkey, he started Euphrates, a wholesale cheese company

The company did decently in sales but took 2 years to break even. Hamdi never had much money and found it tough to run the company

4/

2005 - He came across a piece of junk mail ad for a yogurt factory on sale in upstate New York.

The factory was 80 years old owned by Kraft foods. Kraft was selling the failed factory for 700k $, a steal because it would cost multi million $ to set up a new yogurt factory

5/

But Hamdi had no money. Still he visited the factory and got to know that Kraft had sacked all the 55 ppl who worked in the factory

He wanted to buy out the factory but most of his friends advised against it. Since Kraft couldn't make it, he stood no chance

6/

Nevertheless, he prepared a business plan and got a loan to buy the factory from Kraft

He also hired 4 of the 55 ppl who were fired by Kraft. To start with, they started selling private label yogurt (basically manufactured by the factory for another famous brand)

7/

In parallel, Hamdi did research to create his own yogurt brand. He found that American yogurts were not thick and were watery instead

Hamdi decided to make a thick & rich Greek Yogurt with natural ingredients. Greek yogurts had a mkt share of only 5% in US around that time

8/

He started selling the product under the brand name: Chobani (Shepherd in Turkish) in 2007

Chobani received the first order of 150 cases from a small grocery store. Next week, they asked for 300 cases. Chobani started vanishing from the shelves in small grocery stores fast

9/

2009 - But Hamdi wanted the big retail stores to stock Chobani. He got a deal with Shoprite, a leading retail chain in the US.

But he was not able to pay the shelf fees so he got into an agreement with Shoprite that they can keep the plant if the Yogurt doesn't sell

10/

The same year, shop & stop, BJs wholesale club and Costco also started carrying the brand

With a place in big chains, the popularity and sales of Chobani's Greek yogurt started increasing at a crazy speed

11/

Lacking the budget for traditional marketing, Chobani went for in store sampling. Hamdi's team reached out to bloggers, users on FB and Twitter to share about the product

By 2011, Chobani was amongst the top 3 Yogurt brands in the US

12/

2011 - To keep up with the ever growing demand, Chobani expanded the New York facility and built another plant in Idaho which is said to be the largest Yogurt plant in the world

2012 - Sales hit 1 billion $ for Chobani, a brand started just 5 years ago

13/

By 2013, Chobani was the number 1 Yogurt brand in US ahead of giants like General Mills & Danone

2014 - Chobani received 750 million $ from PE firm TPG. Hamdi retained majority stake

They also received offers from Danone & Pepsi for acquisition but turned them down

14/

Today, the company employees close to 2000+ employees with sales of around 2 billion $ every year from dozens of products.

Chobani has a market share of 20% in the Yogurt market and 40% in Greek yogurt market

15/

Being a firm believer in rewarding employees, Hamdi gave away 10% of his stake in Chobani to his employees in 2016

He continues to work for multiple charities and helps refugees and local communities

16/16

Sources: https://www.industryweek.com/leadership/article/22003396/culture-change-in-the-yogurt-world-as-chobani-passes-yoplait

https://m.startribune.com/the-billionaire-behind-chobani/171264611/

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/business/media/17adco.html