More Competition for the Turkish-Born "Greek" Yogurt King

In a previous post, this blog introduced readers to Hamdi Ulukaya, whose success in founding the Chobani brand of "Greek-style" yogurt has earned him the title the "Steve Jobs of yogurt."

“This trend has been driven by smaller companies and has caught the major US yoghurt manufacturers flat-footed,” said David Driscoll, analyst at Citigroup, who downgraded General Mills because its yoghurt sales have been declining.
Executives of Dannon, which is owned by France’s Danone, said in September that the company did not anticipate the speed with which Greek yoghurt would catch on, and acknowledged that such products were “cannibalising” other types of yoghurt. The company has since stepped up marketing of its Greek yoghurt.
Don Mulligan, chief financial officer of General Mills, told the Financial Times that it would look to use its recent acquisition of Yoplait to make faster progress with its Greek yoghurt products. “There’s going to be other ways into Greek and we have a robust pipeline to drive growth in the category,” he said.

You can read more about this impending yogurt war here.