The Yogurt Market and Yogurt Innovation, 3rd Edition

U.S. Yogurt Market Retail Sales Approach $9 Billion, Growth Expected Through 2022

With the Greek horse of strained yogurt having already refashioned the yogurt category, what's the next disruptor? The longer-term answer is dairy-free, especially beyond soy, which represents a mixed blessing for the category. Some chafed at adopting the back-to-the-future Greek style, as has been the parallel case with organics - but at least there are no intrinsic barriers to doing so. But while a dairy operation can go organic, it cannot become a coconut grove. To an even greater degree than Greek yogurt in its pure, plain incarnation, dairy-free yogurt chips away at the premise that yogurt is at heart a good-for-you product category, any dessert flavors and candy toppings notwithstanding. Worse, non-dairy yogurt takes probiotics and high protein, both hot nutritional trends, and transfers these trump cards to the plant-based product trend's bag of tricks. With the plant-based trend, many younger and trendier American eaters are switching lanes from “leaning more vegetarian” to “leaning more veganish,” and thereby cutting back on or foregoing dairy. 

Although dairy-free is not the only innovation trend going, yogurt leaders have seen the dairy-free messaging on the wall.  Stonyfield Farms, with its dairy-free yogurts, is now under Lactalis.  Danone fields Silk (now including dairy-free and soy-free Silk Almondmilk) and So Delicious coconut culture yogurts. Danone's doing so, and labeling these as products “yogurt alternatives,” will complicate any dairy industry efforts to ban the use of “yogurt” for dairy-free products, in the way it has tried to enforce regulatory restrictions against the use of “milk” for plant-based milk alternatives such as almond, coconut, or cashew. (In any case, as with plant milks, the product shelving medium is the classification message, rather than the terminology on the label.)

Yogurt variations hitching their wagons to the “international version” appeal of Greek yogurt are another important category development theme: skyrs by Icelandic Provisions and Siggi's, the latter now under Lactalis; Australian versions such as Danone's Wallaby Organic; and French-accented versions such as General Mill's indulgence-oriented Oui, in distinctive glass pots, and Liberté, with premium, on-trend flavors such as French Lavender. Whole milk/whole fat yogurts, the antithesis of the dairy-free trend, are once again making the back-to-the future case.  And old-fashioned goodness and wholesomeness notwithstanding, “American style” innovations in flavor, indulgence, and portability remain key to the market.

Scope of the report

The Yogurt Market and Yogurt Innovation, 3rd Edition focuses on the market for yogurt sold to consumers in the United States through retail channels. The market is broken out into two categories: refrigerated yogurt (spoonable) and refrigerated yogurt drinks. The report covers all retail distribution channels that carry yogurt, including supermarkets and grocery stores, mass merchandisers and supercenters, warehouse clubs, specialty food stores, health/natural food stores, convenience stores, drugstores, dollar stores, and direct-sales channels such as online and mail order. Yogurt in other forms (frozen yogurt, yogurt dips, snacks, etc.) or yogurt sold in other venues such as foodservice channels, are not part of the formal scope of the market or included in sales quantification.  Market size data are provided at the retail sales level for 2012-2017 and projections for 2017-2022. 

Methodology

The information in this report was obtained from both primary and secondary research. Primary research included consultation with industry sources and on-site examination of retail stores. Secondary research entailed gathering data from relevant trade, business, and government sources, as well as company promotional literature and annual reports. Estimates of market size and company performance are based on various sources including reported revenues of product manufacturers and retailers, relevant publications, and other market research source