Artificial dyes and other food ingredients are getting more scrutiny these days. Chobani's founder welcomes it — but he says the movement could create problems for food makers.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has talked about removing some artificial ingredients from foods, both before and after he became a member of President Donald Trump's cabinet this year. It's one of the priorities of Kennedy's "Make America Healthy Again" movement, known as MAHA.
Hamdi Ulukaya, the founder and CEO of the yogurt brand Chobani, said Tuesday that he'd long supported removing ingredients such as high-fructose corn syrup and artificial coloring from food. Part of Chobani's pitch to customers is that its yogurt doesn't contain artificial ingredients.
But removing some ingredients can create unintended blowback from customers and create challenges for food companies as they try to make better products, Ulukaya said, speaking at The Wall Street Journal's Global Food Forum.
Ulukaya provided an example: Chobani made a small change to its oat milk that had big trade-offs that customers immediately noticed.
Previously, Chobani used dipotassium phosphate in its oat milk. The compound made the drink foam better, Ulukaya said. This quality won favor with baristas and coffee drinkers.
Chobani recently removed the ingredient, a process that took two years, Ulukaya said during the presentation.
Some customers seem to miss it, Ulukaya said.
"Yesterday, I got a consumer complaint, and it said, 'My oat milk is not foaming as good as it used to,'" he said.
Reviews of Chobani's oat milk on its website confirm that some people aren't happy with the new version. "Lost a customer due to recipe change," reads the title of one recent review.
Ulukaya has also gotten customer complaints about ingredient changes as subtle as the type of vanilla it uses.
"You have to be open that some of the people are not going to like some of those changes," he said.
This points to a challenge for food manufacturers that are being urged by the MAHA movement to use fewer artificial ingredients: Making changes to products may turn away loyal buyers.
"They don't want to take those risks," he said, referring to food companies. "People get really, really pissed."
Food with better ingredients also has to be broadly accessible and affordable to shoppers in order to make a difference, Ulukaya said. Food manufacturers use some artificial or added ingredients, such as processed sugar, to make food taste better without raising costs.
"Everybody wants to eat good, but I don't want to pay $3 for a cup of yogurt," he said.
