Dive Summary:
- With U.S. consumers increasingly favoring healthier options, snack-and-soda giant PepsiCo Inc is expanding its Muller yogurt brand nationwide.
- PepsiCo has a 50/50 partnership with Germany's Theo Muller Group and is banking on yogurt's status as one of the fastest selling grocery categories, its nutritious reputation and the strategies it used to make itself a U.S. leader with hummus and other healthy dips to cash in on the ongoing yogurt craze.
- Despite a late entry into the $7 billion U.S. yogurt market, PepsiCo Chief Executive Indra Nooyi says the company has no plans to fund aggressive promotions for Muller, but despite established competition from General Mills Inc's Yoplait and Danone's Dannon, the company is already expected to perform better than Kraft Foods did with its Athenos line of Greek yogurt.
From the article:
... For yogurt, PepsiCo is using the same strategy it used for Sabra hummus, when it teamed up with Israel's Strauss Group (STRS.TA). Sabra has become a leading brand in just a few years.
The key is "doing it in a differentiated way and doing it with a partner who has skin in the game," said Nooyi, who grew up in India eating home-made yogurt daily. "That's really what we're focused on." ...
