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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

#61

Post by rhizome »

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.

Why do you think they're identical?

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

#62

Post by ghaff »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #34
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",…

I'm surprised you're being downvoted so heavily. I haven't done food manufacturing before but I've looked into it a few times (so I'm far from an expert but I at least know of a thing here and there ). 2,000 seems pretty high to me. I would love to see a breakdown for their employees and what their roles are spread throughout the company. Also how many manufacturing locations they have (I thought it was just one).

They apparently have two plants [1]. For each of those plants, you'll have management, production workers, loading dock people, QA, mechanics, facilities, etc. The company will have management at various levels, HR, marketing (advertising, promotion, branding, etc.), sales, purchasing, finance (AP, AR, tax, payroll, accounting, etc.), PR, customer support, etc. I don't know how this particular company breaks down but it's surprisingly easy to get to significant headcounts as companies scale.

[1] http://www.foodbusinessnews.net/articles/news_home/Business_...

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

#63

Post by fiatmoney »

andrewfong wrote: post #35

> But unlike many of those tech companies, Mr. Ulukaya is giving his employees a piece of the company after its value is firmly established. I wonder how they set this up tax-wise. Stock grants are income, even before you sell. In tech companies, you typically get the stock when it's super cheap, so the tax hit is minimal. But here, since the value's pretty firmly established, the employee is potentially on the hook…

"Stock grants are income, even before you sell"

Just to be clear, RSUs are taxable as income at the value & tax year they vest, not the grant date.

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

#65

Post by 55555 »

dominotw wrote: post #29

Chobani is poison. Insane amount of added sugar. Stay away from it.

If you buy the large containers for home use, you can easily find ones with zero added sugar. They have a great natural sweetness. https://www.dropbox.com/s/u6y7uwkf62r8q8a/Screenshot%202016-...

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

#66

Post by mjfern »

morgante wrote: post #40
mjfern wrote: post #31

It's great to see a founder CEO (Hamdi Ulukaya) making a bold ethical move like this to support his employees. It's not flashy or earth shaking, but it's very real and it will definitely change many lives for the better. This story reminds me tangentially of the time when Hewlett and Packard, when faced with a downturn at HP, decided to cut pay across the board so the company could avoid layoffs. Once HP recovered, I…

> This story reminds me tangentially of the time when Hewlett and Packard, when faced with a downturn at HP, decided to cut pay across the board so the company could avoid layoffs. It mystifies me that cutting pay instead of getting rid of deadweight is seen as noble or honorable. If I were working at HP, I would have quit the second they decided to cut my pay just so they could avoid needed firings.

If you're careful about hiring and put in place the right incentives, then there doesn't have to be much dead weight. And if there's little to no dead weight, then I think it's very noble and honorable for a company to cut salaries across the board to avoid layoffs. It's certainly a lot more noble and honorable than a company that provides its CEO a salary that is 204x that of its average employee (https://www.glassdoor.com/research/ceo-pay-ratio/).

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

#67

Post by eru »

mjfern wrote: post #31

It's great to see a founder CEO (Hamdi Ulukaya) making a bold ethical move like this to support his employees. It's not flashy or earth shaking, but it's very real and it will definitely change many lives for the better. This story reminds me tangentially of the time when Hewlett and Packard, when faced with a downturn at HP, decided to cut pay across the board so the company could avoid layoffs. Once HP recovered, I…

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.

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

#68

Post by PhasmaFelis »

morgante wrote: post #40
mjfern wrote: post #31

It's great to see a founder CEO (Hamdi Ulukaya) making a bold ethical move like this to support his employees. It's not flashy or earth shaking, but it's very real and it will definitely change many lives for the better. This story reminds me tangentially of the time when Hewlett and Packard, when faced with a downturn at HP, decided to cut pay across the board so the company could avoid layoffs. Once HP recovered, I…

> This story reminds me tangentially of the time when Hewlett and Packard, when faced with a downturn at HP, decided to cut pay across the board so the company could avoid layoffs. It mystifies me that cutting pay instead of getting rid of deadweight is seen as noble or honorable. If I were working at HP, I would have quit the second they decided to cut my pay just so they could avoid needed firings.

How do you know they were dead weight? Why do you assume that getting rid of employees (who are still providing value to the company) is necessarily a better move, financially, than reducing pay?

Hell, for that matter, why do you assume that you wouldn't have been among those deemed "dead weight" and laid off?

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

#69

Post by morgante »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #68
morgante wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This story reminds me tangentially of the time when Hewlett and Packard, when faced with a downturn at HP, decided to cut pay across the board so the company could avoid layoffs. It mystifies me that cutting pay instead of getting rid of deadweight is seen as noble or honorable. If I were working at HP, I would have quit the second they decided to cut my pay just so they could avoid needed firings.

How do you know they were dead weight? Why do you assume that getting rid of employees (who are still providing value to the company) is necessarily a better move, financially, than reducing pay? Hell, for that matter, why do you assume that you wouldn't have been among those deemed "dead weight" and laid off?

> How do you know they were dead weight?

I've never seen any large company which didn't have at least some employees whose value was less than their salary. Frequently, such employees can even confer negative value.

Moreover, even if you don't have any deadweight, you do have an ordering of employees. Your top employees are the ones most able to find a job elsewhere and hence very unlikely to accept a pay cut.

> Hell, for that matter, why do you assume that you wouldn't have been among those deemed "dead weight" and laid off?

I don't. Even if I were supposedly in the "dead weight" I would rather be laid off, get severance, and find a new job which would pay me the salary I had negotiated previously. A pay cut is changing the terms on which I agreed to work and would frequently push the job below my BATNA.

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

#70

Post by downandout »

eru wrote: post #67
mjfern wrote: post #31

It's great to see a founder CEO (Hamdi Ulukaya) making a bold ethical move like this to support his employees. It's not flashy or earth shaking, but it's very real and it will definitely change many lives for the better. This story reminds me tangentially of the time when Hewlett and Packard, when faced with a downturn at HP, decided to cut pay across the board so the company could avoid layoffs. Once HP recovered, I…

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 companies - that benefit to at least some degree from being based in the US - to export jobs to other countries?

[1] http://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/impact-of-hu...

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