?Kraft Foods, Inc. has discontinued its Athenos Greek yogurt after less than two short years on the market. It has only been available since the fall of 2010 and it wasn’t completely available nationally until early 2011. They have cancelled production of the Greek yogurt effective March, 2012.
The company has yet to release an official statement as to why they have pulled this product. This appears to be a counterintuitive move on their part considering the fact that the popularity of Greek yogurt has skyrocketed over the past few years, largely in part because of its low fat, high protein makeup. Consumers also enjoy the texture of Greek yogurt because it is richer and creamier than the yogurt that has been commonplace on grocery shelves for decades.
Of the $4.1 billion in annual yogurt sales, Greek yogurt comprises approximately 25% of that total. Greek yogurt is currently so high in demand, that two top Greek yogurt brands (Chobani and Fage) have both expanded their production plants in order to keep up with the growing demand for the product. Agro Farms – which owns the Chobani brand – currently dominates the market share for Greek yogurt at an astounding 60%. In great contrast to Chobani’s annual sales of about $700 million, it is estimated that Kraft barely brought in $15 million last year.
Kraft Foods, Inc. stately vaguely that they were going to concentrate on new products for their Athenos brand, which currently specializes in pita chips, hummus, feta cheese and spreadable cheese. They did not mention whether their sales were not up to par with what they expected when they originally joined the growing Greek yogurt market two years ago. Coincidentally, Kraft is currently going forward with a major split of the company into two separate companies that will each focus on different products.
