05 Nov US: Another flippin’ success story for Chobani
The corner pot concept for yoghurt has been around since the 1980s, but today it’s proving another huge winner for America’s Greek yoghurt king, Chobani.
According to a report on FoodNavigator-USA.com, Chobani’s Flip ‘mix-in’ platform is reportedly operating at a run rate of $300-$350m and could be the next one-billion dollar brand in yoghurt.
Further, says Chobani, it’s planning to take the brand into savoury territory next year with the launch of novel sweet and spicy variants, and has hinted that it’s also considering expanding beyond yoghurt into “adjacent categories”.
Speaking at FoodNavigator-USA.com’s Food Vision USA conference recently, Chobani’s chief marketing and brand officer, Peter McGuinness, said Flip – launched in 2013 – was delivering incremental growth both to Chobani and to the yoghurt category overall by attracting new consumers to the yoghurt aisle, and encouraging existing consumers to buy more yoghurt by opening up new ‘day parts’ in which to enjoy it.
“This platform had 5% trial and 50% repeat when we soft launched it, because it’s delicious food. We did a big campaign, and the thing just took off,” said McGuinness, who noted that Chobani had gone from zero to generating revenues of $1.5bn in less than a decade.
“We’re now number one in the ‘mix in’ segment which is growing at around 30% year on year in yoghurt.”
He added: “80% of yoghurt in America is still consumed in the morning, so we set out to develop a new platform – a highly thoughtful, highly-curated highly delicious afternoon snack. We wanted to create a 3pm yoghurt ritual, when you’re bored at work, or coming home from school or soccer practice, something that bridges the gap between lunch and dinner.
“It’s called Chobani Flip, and we think it’s the future of snacking, and the next billion-dollar brand in yoghurt.”
The most successful product in the Flip lineup to date – almond coco loco, a coconut Greek yoghurt with honey-roasted salted almonds and dark chocolate – is already outselling Chobani’s core cup flavours such as strawberry and blueberry, and is the “number one single serve SKU in the yoghurt category right now”, claimed McGuinness. “It’s unbelievable.”
Several new Flip products will hit shelves in the coming months, including new 100-calorie variants and novel sweet & spicy lines including pineapple chipotle and mango sriracha (debuting in January), he said.
Chobani also plans to launch more whole milk-based products; new packaging formats; and new “fruit and veg” combinations, revealed McGuinness.
As for the move into savoury, he said: “This whole sweet and spicy thing, it’s a really exciting direction for yoghurt. Yes it’s a risk, but I’ve lobbied really hard for this. It’s highly curated, culinary, with lots of nuts and spices and fruits, and interesting flavour combinations. Consumers are bore beyond belief by current flavours, they want flavour and texture, sweet, spicy, crunchy, nuts, seeds, grains, coconut, chocolate… Yoghurt is low interest, let’s make it high interest.”
Asked why Flip was performing better than Muller Quaker Dairy’s mix-in products, McGuinness said he didn’t think the brand resonated with US consumers, and that Chobani’s mix-in products were superior, adding: “We’re talking about high quality Greek yoghurt and really interesting side car ingredients, not just chocolate balls.”…..