Hamdi Ulukaya (born October 26, 1972) is a Turkish-born Kurdish businessman living in the United States. Ulukaya is the owner, founder, Chairman, and CEO of Chobani, the #1-selling strained yogurt (Greek-style) brand in the United States. On April 26, 2016, Ulukaya announced to his employees that he would be giving them 10% of the shares in Chobani.
Originating from a 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. In an interview with CNN Money, Ulukaya explains that he was very serious about Kurdish rights and left Turkey due to the Turkish state’s oppression of its Kurdish minority group. He started a modest feta-cheese factory in 2002 on the advice of his father.
His larger success came from taking a major risk: Ulukaya purchased a large, defunct yogurt factory in upstate New York in 2005, in a region that used to be the center of a dairy and cheese industry. With no prior experience in the yogurt business, he has created a yogurt empire, Chobani, with facilities in several states. It was valued at over $1 billion in annual sales in less than five years after launch, becoming the leading yogurt brand in the U.S. by 2011. The popularity of his Greek-style yogurt also sparked the rise in Greek yogurt’s market share in the U.S. from less than 1% in 2007 to more than 50% in 2013. Ernst & Young named Ulukaya the World Entrepreneur of the Year in 2013. The success of his yogurt empire has made Ulukaya a billionaire and developed new employment in several regions. According to Forbes, his net worth as of 2016 is $1.92 billion. In 2014 a suit was filed by Hamdi Ulukaya’s ex-wife claiming that his success was “based upon a recipe he stole from a competitor” and that “Hamdi boasted on occasions that he had obtained the formula for the Chobani brand of yogurt from Fage by bribing a former employee of Fage. He traveled to Europe and bribed this individual with 30,000 euros.”
Summary
| Hamdi Ulukaya | |
|---|---|
| Born | October 26, 1972 İliç, Erzincan, Turkey |
| Alma mater | University at Albany Ankara University |
| Occupation | Entrepreneur, businessman |
| Known for | Chobani, Founder & CEO |
| Net worth | US$ 1.92 billion (March 2017) |
Turkish-American businessman Hamdi Ulukaya is the founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Chobani Inc. who has an estimated net worth of $1.1 billion as of March 2013. A new billionaire in the Forbes list, he is ranked 1268th and also the 36th richest person in Turkey. Hamdi Ulukaya was born in 1972 to a Kurdish family who operated a dairy farm in Erzincan, Turkey. He took up political science at the University of Ankara then moved to the United States in 1994 and enrolled at the University of Albany in 1997.
In 2001, Ulukaya started Euphrates, a feta cheese company, in upstate New York when he followed his father’s advice. While working with Euphrates, he saw a for-sale ad for a Kraft Foods yogurt plant in a neighboring town. In 2005, he bought the plant located in South Edmeston, near Utica, and started perfecting the recipe for Greek-style yogurt. He then established the new company, Chobani (formerly Agro Farma), and the first order of the marketed “Greek Yogurt” was shipped in October 2007.
Since then, annual sales of Chobani have grown to nearly $1 billion. As of December 2012, Hamdi opened a new yogurt plant for $450 in Twin Falls, Idaho. He also purchased a dairy farm in Australia in the same year. He was named a member of The Business Review’s class of 2009 “40 Under 40.” He was also named the 2013 Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur Of The Year.
In August 2012, he faced a lawsuit filed by his ex-wife, Dr. Alyse Giray. She claimed that she gave him money to start and expand his original business in exchange of a 53% stake. According to her, he used some of the funds to buy the yogurt factory which became Agro Farma, and later Chobani. He said that the lawsuit has no merit.
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