Letter To Athens: Greek Products Miss U.S. Market

NEW YORK - What's all this fuss about Greek yogurt in the United States? Coming to New York for a two-week respite from the insanity of Athens and the Greek economic crisis also provided a chance to find out why Americans were all gaga over yogurt that Greeks take for granted. The king of the hill is Chobani, owned by a Turkish-American, Hamdi Ulukaya, who stole the American market from the Greek turncoat company Fage, which gave up on its own country. Fage, like most Greek companies, didn't want to pay to advertise and believed God would spread the message about its product. Fage pioneered Greek yogurt in the United States 24 years ago, putting it on the shelves of Titan Foods in Astoria, N.Y. Where it was gobbled up fast, and not just by Greeks of the Diaspora, but customers who soon realized despite its exorbitant price that it was a lot better than the watery version being sold by American companies.

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