Hamdi Ulukaya is a Turkish American entrepreneur and businessman. He is the founder and CEO of Chobani, the number one-selling Greek yogurt brand in the U.S.
Originating from a Kurdish dairy-farming family in a small village in Turkey, Ulukaya came to the U.S. in 1994 to study English and took a few business courses as well. He started a modest feta-cheese factory in 2002 on the advice of his father, but his real success came from taking a major risk: purchasing a large defunct yogurt factory in upstate New York in 2005. With no prior experience in the yogurt business, he created a yogurt empire, Chobani, that went from zero to over $1 billion in annual sales in less than five years, becoming the leading yogurt brand in the U.S. by 2011. Ernst & Young named Ulukaya the World Entrepreneur of the Year in 2013.
The yogurt stays the same. So what I mean is, when your role changes, you can never take your eye from your product, never. I always bring people back to a cup of yogurt. We make yogurt. We used to make 300 cases. Now we make 2 million cases. But we still make yogurt. And the consciousness of...(Full transcript available to logged in subscribers.).
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