Yogurts compete for space on store shelves
By Sarah Nassauer, Wall Street Journal
These are dark days for fans of regular yogurt.
The creamy snack is being edged out on grocery store shelves by its thicker, tarter, higher-protein sibling, Greek yogurt.
Over a third of the yogurt in a typical grocery store is now Greek, in varieties from low-fat to fruit-on-the-bottom to tubes for kids. Because shelf space is limited, the Greek squeeze means consumers have had to say goodbye to some varieties of traditional-style yogurt and more obscure flavors. (R.I.P. Stonyfield Farm’s Whole Milk White Chocolate Raspberry and Strawberry Acai flavors.) Pudding cups, margarine and other products with the misfortune of usually sitting near yogurt also are harder to find.
“It certainly has crowded out everything I like to eat,” says Kimberly Davis, a 38-year-old resident of Plattsburgh, N.Y., who doesn’t like the taste of Greek yogurt but eats traditional yogurt often.
I think the cause has mainly been the increased profitability of the Greek Yoghurt, which is generally priced much higher, yet costs very little more to make. Advertising, moving a quite modest number of customers to the higher priced Greek style, and you can have fewer customers and more profit,…if you get ‘the mix’ just right. Helping this along is the more health-conscious public (narrow field anyway) and the somewhat higher protein content of the Greek style.
All-in-all, it is profit, of course, that has been why the yoghurt shelves have changed their mix….and become longer.