Passionate, provocative and innovative, Peter McGuinness, the Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer of Chobani is one of the leading voices championing the idea that business can be a force for good. Founded by the visionary Hamdi Ulukaya, the company starts with its employees: paying double the minimum wage in its factories, and creating a shared-equity platform which means employees own 10% of the $2 billion company. As befits a company started by an immigrant, Chobani is also hugely supportive of immigrants and refugees, setting up the Tent Foundation that tries to mobilize the private sector to improve the livelihoods of the more than 25 million men and women forcibly displaced from their home countries, as well as numerous other initiatives around inclusivity, veterans, social justice and sustainability. In doing so, I believe it has become an iconic brand that rivals Ben and Jerry's in its authentic approach to doing good in the world.
McGuinness began by talking about the purpose of Chobani. "‘Better Food For More People’ is the founding mission and vision of the company. And this was based on an insight that people have good taste, they just need good options. Good food is a right, not a privilege. We thought that 'delicious, nutritious, natural, affordable' was the future of food."
But there's an inherent paradox embedded in that purpose statement that creates space for innovation and growth. "It's a little bit more of a loaded equation than you may think. It’s hard from a profitability and supply chain perspective; that's a very tricky finance equation, because our cost of goods is higher, our sourcing is better, and we're straining our yogurt (three cups of milk to one cup of yogurt), so we're not adding gelatin and thickeners, we're not adding artificial preservatives or artificial sweeteners which are cheap. We're using high-quality ingredients, but we don't want to price it out of the reach of everybody. So, I think it's a really noble mission to want to do ‘better food for more people’, which is basically nutritional wellness. A 'wellness company' is how we view ourselves and we want 'universal wellness' to happen sooner.”
This has led to ‘universal wellness’ being adopted as Chobani’s North Star.” What we mean by making 'universal wellness' happen sooner is firstly, nutritional wellness. Secondly, social wellness; immigration, equality, inclusion, our employees, our communities. And thirdly, environmental wellness. And so how we've distilled down our company is that we are a food-focused wellness company that uses food as a force of good.”
Deep at the core of Chobani lie a set of core values which drive everything the company does. “If it's just on a screen or on a piece of paper, that means absolutely nothing to me. You need to live it day in and day out. Deeds are louder than words, you know? At Chobani, it's very, very genuine, it's very, very natural. It doesn't look like we're being exploitative or commercial, because we've kind of always been about that. So it's not questioned, it doesn't look like a stunt. We're not trying to do this stuff to seem cool when we're not. We're not trying to do this stuff to seem like we have a heart and we don't. This is how we live. This is how we work. This courses through our veins at Chobani."
This core belief is so manifested in everything the company does that it doesn’t even have a CSR department. “We don't have a corporate responsibility department. I don't even know what the hell that is. That's our entire company, not a department. On all the good stuff we've done, we've never done anything paid behind it. A third of our workforce are refugees and immigrants. We don't do ads about that. If it's truly who you are at the core, you don't need to brag about it. If people find out organically, great, but we weren't doing it for that reason. I think that's the real difference."
McGuinness is thoughtful when he thinks about how a brand can embody kindness and tolerance while also being a fierce competitor commercially. "I think you can be a warrior and a shepherd. ‘Chobani’ means 'shepherd' (in Turkish). And I think shepherds give the shirt off their back and it's very unconditional. And then I think you can also be a fierce warrior and want to win in the marketplace. I think that the same company can want to do good in the world and help humanity. I don't think that those are two divergent thoughts anymore. "
McGuinness is also quick to admit that the brand has made some missteps along the way. "We've made some mistakes in the past where we're super righteous and called out our competition. We had the right to do it and had the science behind us and you know what? Consumers didn't really like it if you're righteous and from the mountaintop. It's yogurt. So, I don't think you can take yourself too seriously."
This also led to the realization that Chobani didn’t have to wear its values on its sleeve- for instance in its packaging. “"I think you can have packaging that's accessible and approachable and fun because so much of that’s in the brand and almost goes without saying from a consumer perspective. You don't have to express all that in the packaging. We don't have to be uber-serious and have a million different claims about nutrition. And if you look at our core cup, it's just beautiful fruit. We don't talk about 2 billion probiotics and like it's a science experiment. We want our food to be good to eat, fun to eat.”
McGuinness pauses as he thinks about what advice he’d give to other purpose-driven leaders in the space. "I think everybody should have their own playbook and what works for Chobani may not work for many, many other companies. Find that one thing that is beautiful about your brand or your business, and double down on it. Every brand has something that's magical about it. Stop trying to search for the next thing. Stop trying to reinvent stuff, unearth something very magical that's there and authentic and real. And that could be a founder story, it could be a founding belief, a founding principle, it could be a cultural trait. Don't do it because it's on trend or because you think it could be exploited. Do it because it's something special and sincere and genuine about that brand. Champion it. Make everybody live it so that it becomes this prideful, galvanizing thing that later can manifest itself in the external world."
In closing, when asked to summarize Chobani in one word? “Humanity. That's what we stand for. We're advocates of humanity in terms of how we treat our plant workers or employees, how we make our products, how we treat the planet in terms of the community, the disaster relief work we do, our hiring practices, our foundation work, our refugee and immigrant stances, our sexual and gender orientations stances. Just speak your values and views and have a point of view. If your culture is that let it fly. Do the right thing regardless of short-term impacts. By doing that, have we upset some people along the way that may have consumed yogurt? Yes. But that's what we believe. And we think it's the right thing to do."
