The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[DewDiligence]

PEP’s Quaker division pursues yogurt market:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/09/business/pepsico-with-muller-by-quaker-yogurt-aims-at-a-surging-market.html

Brace for the yogurt wars, as PepsiCo, long focused on battling its archrival, Coca-Cola, takes on the likes of Dannon and General Mills, not to mention Fage and Chobani.

In the most visible sign yet of its efforts to curb its reliance on soda sales, PepsiCo this month will start selling yogurt in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states. The products will initially be manufactured in Europe by Theo Müller, a large privately held German dairy company that has formed a joint venture with PepsiCo to capitalize on the growing yogurt market in the United States… So confident are the two companies that they are investing $206 million in a 363,000-square-foot plant in Batavia, N.Y.

…Americans on average consumed 12 pounds of yogurt a year, or half as much as Canadians and a third the amount of Europeans.

…Müller by Quaker will try to change that with what Mr. Lteif calls “mainstream premium” products that fill a gap between mass brands like Dannon and Yoplait and niche Greek yogurts like Fage and Chobani.

I happen to be a fan of Fage 0%, FWIW.