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The new Oikos packaging North America Danone Danone North America hopes to reinvigorate the Greek yogurt industry with a fresh appearance and formula for Oikos this summer. According to Euromonitor International, the overall US market was valued $10.1 billion last year. Danone is the leading yogurt manufacturer, with more than a third of the total market share. Chobani, which helped popularize Greek yogurt but has since expanded into other food categories, is a distant second with 19.1 percent of the market. (Chobani is thinking about going public this year.) “For several years, the category of pre-pandemic has remained essentially flat. During the pandemic, it did have some acceleration, with growth rates in the mid-single digits, but I believe it’s fair to say that it did not accelerate to the same degree as some of our other segments “Shane Grant, Danone North America’s CEO, stated this. After serving as the CEO of Coca-non-carbonated Cola’s beverages business unit, Grant assumed control of the division last year. After Danone bought WhiteWave in 2017, practically doubling its U.S. business, North America has become an increasingly crucial portion of the company’s overall operation. Danone’s stronghold on the American yogurt market is largely due to its success in the wellness category, with its probiotic yogurt Activia, and the plant-based segment, which is currently the fastest-growing segment of the yogurt market. Silk is a brand of dairy-free yogurt sold by Danone. However, despite the fact that sales have increased owing to the pandemic, Greek yogurt, which is the largest segment of the yogurt category, has had far slower growth. According to Nielsen, total U.S. retail sales of Greek yogurt increased by 4.6 percent in the 52 weeks ending May 29. Greek yogurt sales had dropped 7.4% in the same time period two years previous. “While Greek yogurt has been very constant,” Grant said, “it hasn’t really been one of the real growth engines in yogurt, at least not in the last few years, and it hasn’t made it with enough excitement from millennial customers.” Danone arrived on a reformulation of Oikos blended nonfat yogurt with 50 percent more fruit and a creamier flavour after multiple rounds of user feedback. It also omitted the fruit from the bottom of the yogurt in favor of integrating it throughout. The new packaging has a white background and large letters. At June, Oikos blended yogurt became available in grocery stores. With a huge marketing campaign from Danone, it will be accessible countrywide by July. The timing is also not coincidental. Consumers who take their yogurt cups from home and eat it on the go, according to Grant, account for a “significant share” of yogurt consumption. Those events essentially vanished during the epidemic, but breakfast took their place, as many consumers worked remotely and began making their own breakfasts for the first time in years. Consumers are becoming more mobile as states relax regulations, and many firms are preparing to call their employees back to work, if they haven’t already. Danone’s attempt to strengthen the Oikos brand as part of a broader strategy to reinvigorate yogurt demand includes a rebrand and reformulation. It has been reinvesting in Oikos Triple Zero, a zero-fat, zero-added-sugars, and artificial-sweetener-free yogurt. It released Oikos Pro, a 20-gram protein supplement, last year. “We saw an opportunity here to bring something to the market that we believe can really spark that component of the yogurt business,” Grant said, “because Greek is massive, certainly the biggest component of yogurt.”/nRead More

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