Chobani

“Today, you know, roughly Chobani's got about 20, 22% of the yogurt market in the U.S.”

“You know, commercially, this cannot be done with a cheesecloth. It needs to be a centrifuge separator. And these separators are, you know, I would say, you know, close to a million dollars by the time.”

“A time came, and I remember the gentleman called me, and he said, here's the amount that you will get, here is the, you know, percentage of the company that you have to give away, which is what was almost majority at that time, and you will be out of the compa…”

“I can prove the only reason Chobani is extremely successful, if it is, is because of those angles.”

“All this time, I'm betting on they're going to be very slow, and they were slow. So by the time they wake up, really, I was at five, six hundred million dollar sales area.”

“I personally said, if it doesn't sell, I will give you the factory.”

“My view was, I spent so much time making this yogurt and I think it's one of the best that I've made, and people will not, you know, see the difference if I put them in the same cups, so if I can catch their eye, have them to try it once, the yogurt will finis…”

“I have offered this huge amount of money, and there's endless what you can do with this money. And I said no to it. And I said no a few times.”

“That is the biggest event in the history of Chobani. Now, in order to be able to make it to ShopRite, or that kind of conventional stores, you have to pay, what they call it, listing fee. And every cup, I don't know what it is now, but I think at the time it w…”

“From 2009 to 2011 i probably interviewed five maybe six candidates for ceo and every time i interview the person and i would see a dimension that would not fit chobani i would see a dimension that it would be risky i would see a dimension that it would not it …”

“I would have been more prepared than I would have done in In stages, I wouldn't do it in as fast. I would be more cautious. I would put more, you know, team members in place and make some changes.”

“You're about to File bankruptcy. Exactly. I've never talked about this anywhere before. It wasn't that damaging. But what it is, is the banks got really nervous, and they wanted their loan to be paid back. And that loan was used to build a factory supported by…”

“You know, at that time, you know, not only two hundred and fifty million, until six hundred million dollars, I run that company on QuickBooks.”

“So I did not have huge interest on natural channels. I wanted this product to be in a mass channels where ordinary people shop.”

“And then I priced it Below my cost at that time.”

“If I reached to 20,000 cases, I would break even, and everything after that it would be you know, profitable.”

“So it didn't make it too much difference in life, but what it did is you had a reputation, people will trust you, they will value your opinion and usually you will buy all the other people's cheese, and you combine them, and you would, my father would take it …”

“Because we literally went from zero to billion in sales in five years without taking a penny from outside in that factory.”

“At that time, it was close to one million square feet plant. And with the 14 lines, we built it less than one year.”

“All of these Greek yogurt companies, whether it's Chobani or whether it's just Ben and Jerry's or something, they could make a frozen Greek yogurt at the snap of their fingers. Whereas my little light ice cream concoction was much more unique and had a differe…”

“We are also very inspired by what Chobani did in yogurt, where 50% of the yogurt category is now this higher protein, lower sugar version of yogurt.”

“One night before, before we filed, the banker called and said, Hamdi, we hear that you're going to do this. It's going to make us look so bad. I think they were also acting, acting really out of ordinary at that time, forcing me to do something. And he says, w…”

“And they did come, and they said, what about selling? And the numbers were with billions.”

“And I found out that there is a plant in Bogota, Colombia that I went and they said, we will make it for you. We will sleeve it for you and we'll ship it for you. And I said, that was good because none of the packaging companies here would make it for me.”

“My view was, I spent so much time making this yogurt and I think it's one of the best that I've made, and people will not, you know, see the difference if I put them in the same cups, so if I can't catch their eye, Have them to try it once, the yogurt will fin…”

“I would have been more prepared than I would have done in In stages, I wouldn't do it in as fast. I would be more cautious. I would put more, you know, team members in place and make some changes.”

“I personally said, if it doesn't sell, I will give you the factory.”

“The problem with the CEO things is through this journey of my, from 2009 to 2011, I probably interviewed Five, maybe six candidates for CEO. And every time I interview the person, and I would see a dimension that would not fit Chobani. I would see a dimension …”

“You know, at that time, you know, not only two hundred and fifty million, until six hundred million dollars, I run that company on QuickBooks.”

“At that time, it was close to one million square feet plant. And with the 14 lines, we built it less than one year.”

“I did not have huge interest on natural channels. I wanted this product to be in a mass channels where ordinary people shop.”

“And everything, everything in Chobani was Internally finance. We never had a an outside investors. So I had over a billion in sales in, in five years, and making really, really good margins, good profits.”

“But I had a simple napkin calculation. If I reached the 20,000 cases, I would break even. And everything after that, it would be you know, profitable.”

“About a year after we ran this interview, Chobani acquired the ready-to-drink coffee company La Cologne for nine hundred million dollars.”

“I called the refugee center, and I said, what is the problem? And she said these are people who have a right to work, legally settled, and they don't speak the language, they don't have, you know, transportation, or people don't want to touch it because it's a…”

“And then I priced it below my cost at the time.”

“Today, you know, roughly Chobani's got about 22% of the yogurt market in the US.”

“In order for that to happen, you need to take out this VC. And he said, great, let's meet him. And we met him, and he did. And they had no problem with it? They were like, sure, we'll sell. That's fine. Yeah, they doubled their money in a couple months.”