Australian Chobani factory to serve as “dairy export hub” into Asia
American-based yogurt company Chobani yesterday opened a $30 million yogurt factory in Victoria, anticipating it will serve as an export hub to drive further growth of Australian dairy into Asia.
According to Chobani, the new plant based at Dandenong South, will fuel growing Chinese demand for the company’s main brands “Chobani Greek Yoghurt” and “Gippsland Dairy.”
Victoria’s agriculture minister the Honourable Peter Walsh MLA, said that the “expansion was good news for Australian dairy farmers” and was a “strong vote of confidence in Victoria’s valuable dairy sector.”
Chobani purchased Victorian dairy company Bead Foods in 2011 and has added over 3,000sqm of wet processing and cool room facilities to the existing operation – effectively tripling production capacity to over 30,000 tonnes of yogurt per annum.
Hamdi Ulukaya, President, global CEO and Founder of Chobani said that the company had “come a long way in just five years.” Originally founded in 2005 after Mr Ulukaya purchased a closed-down Kraft plant in the United States, Chobani is now regarded as the most popular yoghurt brand in America, and is quickly expanding in the Australian market.
“We chose Australia as our first international market to launch Chobani because of its amazingly high quality milk, and we knew that Australians are passionate about great-tasting food. The completion of this facility is the realisation of a dream that I have had for some time now, and I am truly humbled by the warm welcome Australia has given Chobani,” Mr Ulukaya said.
Chobani Australia has increased the number of manufacturing and management staff with the opening of the new plant, creating 50 new jobs in the last year. It is expected that another 150 additional jobs will be added now that the plant is operational.
Just back from the USA where Chobani is getting strong competition from a brand ex Dannon called Oikos, massive advertising campaign, and couponing.
Also a number of stores have their own home brand greek yoghurt,
Good to see investment back into Australia
What benefit is it to Australia other than a few jobs if a foreign owned company buys our companies and then exports off shore. The decisions, profits and reinvestment will not stay here. It is not investment when they buy our businesses. And why do our businesses sell – becuase government policies have favoured foreign interests ahead of our own for decades and now foreign interests laugh all the way to our bank of assets. Dare you to publish this comment as you rarely feature any Australian company stories.
Not sure who likes Chobani. I like only Greek yogurt and Chobani Greek is not so good. Like made from powder. No comparison to Jalna, for example.
But, I see that their best selling yogurts are with fruit.
I love Chobani yoghurt. I buy at least 2 big tubs of the greek yoghurt every week. Was very disappointed even horrified to find what appeared to be a worm in the yoghurt I bought tonight. I was making my shake for my morning drink and found the floating culprit. Could not have been in anything else as had not added anything but the milk and yoghurt. :(((
The rise of Chobani yoghurt seems to have come at the expense of Gippsland Organic yoghurt, a Bead Foods product which has now been discontinued despite it being the best plain yoghurt on the market – not to mention one of the few readily available products made from organic milk. Chobani is not a patch on Gippsland yoghurt, but as it’s going to be far more profitable for the company to sell its new product into China using Australia as a base, I guess it was a no-brainer to ditch a product that was only going to sell to a relatively small number of customers here (compared to China). No doubt it’s the way of the future – we will be the poorer for it.