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At Chobani, Now It’s Not Just the Yogurt That’s Rich

nytimes.com

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Re: At Chobani, Now It’s Not Just the Yogurt That’s Rich

#71

Post by aetherson »

downandout wrote: post #70
eru wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with most of what you say in terms of valuable strategy to keep your employees happy and loyal. From an ethical point of view, outsourcing is great. It provides jobs for people in poor countries.

>From an ethical point of view, outsourcing is great. It provides jobs for people in poor countries. I disagree. Even in today's global economy, the country in which a business is based seems to have a significant effect on its prospects. In 2014, 19% of US households with children were food insecure , and 46.8 million people were in poverty [1]. Given the widespread poverty right here in the US, is it ethical for US…

Yes.

Your two arguments appear to be:

1. There is poverty in the US. Of course there is. But there is much worse and much more widespread poverty in nearly every other country in the world.

2. Companies "benefit to at least some degree from being based in the US." They also benefit to at least some degree from the economic participation of hundreds of other countries. Even if "that poor person in Asia hasn't done anything for me, so I'm gonna give my money to someone ten times richer" were moral (which it's not), it's not even true that that person has done nothing for you.

Re: At Chobani, Now It’s Not Just the Yogurt That’s Rich

#72

Post by WWKong »

downandout wrote: post #70
eru wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with most of what you say in terms of valuable strategy to keep your employees happy and loyal. From an ethical point of view, outsourcing is great. It provides jobs for people in poor countries.

>From an ethical point of view, outsourcing is great. It provides jobs for people in poor countries. I disagree. Even in today's global economy, the country in which a business is based seems to have a significant effect on its prospects. In 2014, 19% of US households with children were food insecure , and 46.8 million people were in poverty [1]. Given the widespread poverty right here in the US, is it ethical for US…

You could replace "US" in your argument with the county, state, region, continent or earth. Where do you draw the line? You want to see people of earth get jobs or people of americas or people of Nebraska? All man made lines on a map.

Re: At Chobani, Now It’s Not Just the Yogurt That’s Rich

#73

Post by sooheon »

aetherson wrote: post #71
downandout wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>From an ethical point of view, outsourcing is great. It provides jobs for people in poor countries. I disagree. Even in today's global economy, the country in which a business is based seems to have a significant effect on its prospects. In 2014, 19% of US households with children were food insecure , and 46.8 million people were in poverty [1]. Given the widespread poverty right here in the US, is it ethical for US…

Yes. Your two arguments appear to be: 1. There is poverty in the US. Of course there is. But there is much worse and much more widespread poverty in nearly every other country in the world. 2. Companies "benefit to at least some degree from being based in the US." They also benefit to at least some degree from the economic participation of hundreds of other countries. Even if "that poor person in Asia hasn't done any…

To your point 1, some could argue:

Yes, outsourcing employs poor people elsewhere, but at 1/100th the cost. So the overall transfer of wealth is reduced, and global wealth gap increased. Also, given the intricacies of economic development, it is debatable whether an influx of outsourced jobs and factories (which may feed workers, but hinder formation of local industries) is better for the poor of that country. Just pointing out that it's not so easy to make a claim that outsourcing is categorically better for poor people anywhere, all things considered.

Re: At Chobani, Now It’s Not Just the Yogurt That’s Rich

#74

Post by taneq »

ae_keji wrote: post #21

Honestly I'm surprised this doesn't happen more. While yes, it was a very kind gesture by Ulukaya to give his employees partial ownership, it also makes each of them much more involved in the long term success of the company. Putting a company on the stock market is selling it to people who are only interested in earnings for a few quarters at most, while employees will have interest in not only the growth of the com…

Not to mention that hiring and training an employee is a significant investment. Losing a bunch of employees at once, probably each with some irreplaceable domain-specific knowledge, will cost the company in the long run.

Re: At Chobani, Now It’s Not Just the Yogurt That’s Rich

#75

Post by sooheon »

WWKong wrote: post #72
downandout wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>From an ethical point of view, outsourcing is great. It provides jobs for people in poor countries. I disagree. Even in today's global economy, the country in which a business is based seems to have a significant effect on its prospects. In 2014, 19% of US households with children were food insecure , and 46.8 million people were in poverty [1]. Given the widespread poverty right here in the US, is it ethical for US…

You could replace "US" in your argument with the county, state, region, continent or earth. Where do you draw the line? You want to see people of earth get jobs or people of americas or people of Nebraska? All man made lines on a map.

But the people of the world do exist within man-drawn squares, with vastly diverse internal situations. I don't think that it's obviously more ethical to employ someone in China for 12c an hour, over someone in Nebraska for $12. It's debatable, sure, but hardly a foregone conclusion.

In my own country of S. Korea, the greatest economic boon of the 60s and 70s was mobilization of our cheap labor to create and export ourselves goods like wigs and textiles, plywood, etc. This allowed local corporations to reap the margins, and the profits stayed within the country (chaebol are another matter...). With outsourcing, the profits go the multinational corporation, and none of the increased margins made possible by the cheap labor ever gets distributed to the country of the laborers.

Re: At Chobani, Now It’s Not Just the Yogurt That’s Rich

#76

Post by venomsnake »

treehau5 wrote: post #53
ghaff wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It doesn't taste much different to the existing products, and costs more. That's pretty typical of branded product. And sometimes the difference is worth it and sometimes not. The broader thing that I find pretty impressive is how Greek-style (i.e. thicker) yogurt has gone from this thing I could pickup at Trader Joe's or Whole Foods to being the dominant yogurt style at Walmart in just a few years.

Buyer beware however, I'd say 90% of the stuff out there is rubbish. Like you said it is "greek style" but it's thicker only as a result of adding thickening agents, and a far-cry of actual authentic greek yogurt, Dannon and Yoplait being the biggest offenders. Chobani is close, but I would say Fage is the absolute best. Greek yogurt should be hardly sweet, extremely tart, and so thick it almost makes you thirsty --…

It should be slightly sweet - but only from the lactose in the milk.

Anyway for anyone that wants to taste the real deal - take a gallon of milk (produced without antibiotics), boil, wait to cool to 48 C, add starter,wrap in a blanket, wait 1 day, put cloth on a mesh strainer, put the resulting yogurt in the strainer, wait.

DO NOT THROW AWAY the strained liquid - the so called acid whey. When chilled to the point of freezing it is great refreshing drink.

Re: At Chobani, Now It’s Not Just the Yogurt That’s Rich

#77

Post by ido »

venomsnake wrote: post #76
treehau5 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buyer beware however, I'd say 90% of the stuff out there is rubbish. Like you said it is "greek style" but it's thicker only as a result of adding thickening agents, and a far-cry of actual authentic greek yogurt, Dannon and Yoplait being the biggest offenders. Chobani is close, but I would say Fage is the absolute best. Greek yogurt should be hardly sweet, extremely tart, and so thick it almost makes you thirsty --…

It should be slightly sweet - but only from the lactose in the milk. Anyway for anyone that wants to taste the real deal - take a gallon of milk (produced without antibiotics), boil, wait to cool to 48 C, add starter,wrap in a blanket, wait 1 day, put cloth on a mesh strainer, put the resulting yogurt in the strainer, wait. DO NOT THROW AWAY the strained liquid - the so called acid whey. When chilled to the point of…

Only after easing your description did I realize Greek yogurt is basically labneh.

Re: At Chobani, Now It’s Not Just the Yogurt That’s Rich

#78

Post by venomsnake »

ido wrote: post #77
venomsnake wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be slightly sweet - but only from the lactose in the milk. Anyway for anyone that wants to taste the real deal - take a gallon of milk (produced without antibiotics), boil, wait to cool to 48 C, add starter,wrap in a blanket, wait 1 day, put cloth on a mesh strainer, put the resulting yogurt in the strainer, wait. DO NOT THROW AWAY the strained liquid - the so called acid whey. When chilled to the point of…

Only after easing your description did I realize Greek yogurt is basically labneh.

From marketing point of view sadly the difference is huge.

Greek yogurt is pleasantly neutral as a meaning, new but not exotic, boring and safe choice for everyday use. Marketing labneh will be a lot harder - if the audience starts to view some food as ethnic and/or exotic - they wont buy it as a staple. And lets not discount the possibility of social media @#$$-storm if you somehow misspell, mismarket or whatever.

Do you want to quadruple the sales of tahini in US - rename it as sesame butter.

Re: At Chobani, Now It’s Not Just the Yogurt That’s Rich

#79

Post by bobosha »

downandout wrote: post #70
eru wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with most of what you say in terms of valuable strategy to keep your employees happy and loyal. From an ethical point of view, outsourcing is great. It provides jobs for people in poor countries.

>From an ethical point of view, outsourcing is great. It provides jobs for people in poor countries. I disagree. Even in today's global economy, the country in which a business is based seems to have a significant effect on its prospects. In 2014, 19% of US households with children were food insecure , and 46.8 million people were in poverty [1]. Given the widespread poverty right here in the US, is it ethical for US…

Well companies like GE, Cisco, IBM earn >50% of their revenue ex-US, so you would expect a corresponding outsourcing - offshoring is the correct phrase here - of jobs to countries where they get revenue.

Re: At Chobani, Now It’s Not Just the Yogurt That’s Rich

#80

Post by NoGravitas »

astrange wrote: post #7
dimino wrote: post #4

Congrats, but I'm always blown away at the size of some companies. Do you really need 2000 people to make yogurt? Airplanes are big complex systems, so I get that, but yogurt? Edit: Apparently I rubbed some folks the wrong way. I didn't mean to think I could do better, I just meant it's a wild thought that something so "simple" as yogurt could require so many people to make. You guys probably know about "I, Pencil",…

It must've taken a big marketing team to invent calling sugar "evaporated cane juice" in the list of ingredients.

Evaporated cane juice should mean a product like panela or rapadura [1] -- a dark brown unrefined (non centrifugal) sugar containing all of the molasses from the original sugar cane. Unfortunately, in the US, there is no legal constraint on how the term is used, and so when you see it on packaging, you should read it as "sugar", or, perhaps more optimistically, "brown sugar".

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panela

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