Yesterday I was invited to a breakfast event held by some friends of mine at FMCG recruitment company, Miller Leith.

Obviously not being from the industry I wasn’t sure how interested I would be in the presentation, but 5 minutes in I was hooked.

The story of the rise of Chobani Yogurt really is a great one, and has been written about many times before but I’ll give you the short version here:

• Turkish immigrant Hamdi Ulukaya, bought a disused Kraft Yogurt factory without any real plans of how the business would work.
• His main reason for this investment was “ “I always believed the yogurt here (in the United States) wasn’t as good as the rest of the world.”
• By 2007 they had produced the first ever tub of Greek Yogurt at their factory.
• 4 years later it was the #1 Greek Yogurt brand in the USA
• Now, 5 years after launching, Chobani is the #1 Yogurt brand in the Australian market overtaking many big industry players.

The big things that struck me during the presentation were:

The Buy in and Passion of the Team

Chobani have not only built a very valuable brand revenue wise. The whole team is has passion, pride, and a feeling of brand ownership you very rarely see.

Product, Product, Product

Although there is certainly more to their approach, the most important aspect they say contributed to their success is simply the best product in the market. It is by far the most important ingredient to their success.

Hustle

Being a new player in every market they enter, Chobani really have to work to infiltrate established markets. Flying in product to Australia from NYC; Going big with their ranging plans in big retailers; and thinking outside the box for marketing strategies.

A Simple Strategy

One slide that stuck in my head on the day was a simple marketing strategy they ran with:

1.  Make great products
2.  Make it available for sale
3.  Give it to people to try
4.  Invite people to talk about it

Big thanks to Miller Leith and the team for organising such a great event and inviting us along.