Chobani was founded in 2005 by Hamdi Ulukaya, a Turkish-Kurdish immigrant who arrived in New York in 1994 to study English. He bought a defunct Kraft yogurt plant in South Edmeston, New York in 2005 using a Small Business Administration loan for approximately $700,000. By 2012, Chobani had become the best-selling yogurt brand in the United States, a rise that has few parallels in modern American food history.
Ulukaya remains CEO and holds an estimated 78% majority stake. The company is privately held. The known investor table:
The yellow score reflects the unnamed investor gap specifically. Chobani's core ownership story — founder-controlled, mission-driven, privately held — remains largely intact. But a $650M equity raise from an undisclosed party at a $20 billion valuation is not a minor transaction. Whoever holds that stake has a meaningful financial interest in the outcome of Chobani's IPO and its ongoing brand decisions. Consumers have no way to know who that is.
Chobani's marketing is genuinely aligned with its product. The "Nothing But Good" positioning reflects an actual ingredient commitment — the plain yogurt line is as clean as a commercial dairy product gets. No paid influencer-equity arrangements. No celebrity investors promoting the product on health podcasts while holding equity. No subscription lock-in. The marketing is traditional CPG advertising with a founder-story emphasis, and the founder story is real.
Ulukaya's public commitments — employee ownership stakes, refugee hiring, the Tent Partnership for Refugees — are substantiated and documented, not brand-narrative additions. Chobani gave employees a 10% ownership stake in the company ahead of the anticipated 2021 IPO. This is an unusual and meaningful act in a category dominated by extraction-oriented ownership structures.
The green score is earned but has a future tense asterisk: as Chobani moves toward IPO and into the La Colombe coffee and Daily Harvest acquisitions, the alignment between the founder's values-driven narrative and the public-market incentive structure will be tested in ways it has not been while remaining private.
Single retail purchase, $1.50–$2.50 per cup. No subscription, no DTC auto-renewal. You buy it at the grocery store, you eat it, you decide next week whether to buy it again. The revenue model imposes no structural pressure toward continued purchase beyond product quality and price. This is as clean as a consumer food brand gets.
Plain Chobani Greek Yogurt ingredients: Pasteurized Nonfat Milk, Live and Active Cultures (S. Thermophilus, L. Bulgaricus, L. Acidophilus, Bifidus, L. Casei). Two effective ingredients. This is what yogurt is. There is no sugar, no thickener, no modified starch, no flavor system. The straining process that removes whey to create Greek yogurt's thickness is mechanical, not chemical.
This green score applies specifically and narrowly to the plain yogurt line — the product that built Chobani's reputation. The flavored lines are a different matter:
The green score for ingredient integrity reflects the core product, not the full portfolio. Chobani has expanded aggressively into flavored, sweetened, and novelty lines that carry the plain yogurt's health associations without its ingredient standards. This is a yellow flag on the portfolio level, even though the flagship is clean.
Chobani markets its yogurt with "live and active cultures" claims and implies digestive and immune health benefits. "Live and active cultures" is a factual statement — the National Yogurt Association certifies this claim, and it requires a minimum threshold of live bacteria per gram at the time of manufacture.
The yellow score reflects the gap between what "live and active cultures" means scientifically and what most consumers understand it to mean. The clinical evidence for probiotic benefits from yogurt specifically — as distinct from concentrated probiotic supplements — is mixed. Study quality is variable, and the survivability of cultures through digestion varies significantly by strain and by individual gut environment. The FDA does not permit yogurt to make specific disease prevention claims based on probiotic content. Chobani's marketing stays carefully within structure-function claim territory while allowing consumers to draw conclusions the evidence doesn't fully support.
No FDA enforcement actions. No FTC complaints. No major class action litigation against Chobani's labeling specifically. The yellow score is prospective and portfolio-level rather than a current regulatory finding.
The concern is the uniform "Nothing But Good" brand positioning applied across a portfolio that ranges from genuinely clean (plain Greek) to dessert-adjacent (Flip line at 17g added sugar). A consumer who trusts Chobani because they've read the plain yogurt label and found it clean may purchase a Flip cup with a different assumption than the label supports. The brand halo from the plain line extends across the entire portfolio — which is valuable marketing and potentially misleading nutrition communication simultaneously.
Chobani's "natural" claims on flavored products have been challenged in litigation. A 2013 class action alleged that Chobani's use of "natural" to describe products containing non-organic milk was misleading. The suit settled. Chobani's "natural" labeling has since been more carefully managed, but the underlying tension between the brand's clean-food identity and its portfolio's actual ingredient range remains.
Chobani's safety record is strong. A 2013 mold contamination recall affected approximately 35 varieties and resulted in consumer complaints of bloating and illness. Chobani identified the mold strain (Mucor circinelloides), issued a voluntary recall, and implemented manufacturing process changes. The response was considered timely and transparent by industry and regulatory standards. No subsequent major safety incidents have occurred.
Chobani publishes a formal food safety and quality program, operates under continuous FDA oversight as a dairy manufacturer, and has not had recurrence of the 2013 issue. The green score reflects a genuine safety record — this is not a charity score. The company has earned it.