Photo by Aglaia Kremezi

For yogurt-based recipes, try dip with garlic, cucumber, and fennel; salad with parsley, spinach, and walnuts; almond cake with lemon syrup; or pie with vine leaves.

Yogurt Millionaires

By a very strange coincidence, our yogurt man was Mr. Filippou, the grandfather (or the great uncle) of the present owners of FAGE, the company that has extended its yogurt business all over the world. From their little workshop in Patissia the family created the first yogurt factory in Athens. The name of the company--now one of the largest food businesses in Greece--is pronounced FAH-yeh, an acronym from Filippou Adelfoi Galaktokomikes Epicheriseis (the Filippou Brothers Dairy Company), a word that felicitously means "eat!" in Greek.

While working as an editor for a short-lived Greek news magazine in the late 80s, I interviewed Ioannis Filippou, one of the two brothers--the sons of our yogurt man--who created the yogurt empire. He told me that their biggest challenge was to convince people to exchange traditional parchment-paper-covered yogurt, with the thick skin on top, for homogenized sealed cups with a longer shelf life.

They decided to introduce it on a Saturday afternoon, as people rushed to finish their shopping and go home. Grocery stores closed early on Saturdays and people usually bought their essentials at corner delis that sold fresh milk, coffee, ice cream, candies, cigarettes, newspapers, and magazines. Vendors were instructed to place the yogurt cup in a brown paper bag, so consumers would not detect the difference before reaching home; cleverly, Mr. Filippou doubted that the consumer would return to exchange the "new" product.

The yogurt millionaires are the equivalent of the Greek ship-owners of the past. They are patrons of the arts, and at the center of the most talked-about Athenian society events.

"Once they tasted it, I was sure they would ask for it the next time," he told me.

And he was right. The sealed cup contained yogurt similar to today's best seller Total, the creamy thick yogurt now produced in a New York plant. Greeks loved it, and FAGE became the number one yogurt manufacturer in Greece. Later, the Filippou brothers acquired EVGA, the oldest fresh milk and ice cream producer in the country, and either bought or created various other food companies that produce frozen phyllo pastry, biscuits, fruit juices, etc. Recently they decided to disentangle themselves from fresh milk distribution--a fiercely competitive business in Greece--and focus on the expansion of their cheese production.

Exporting to Europe and the U.S.

When the company decided to start exporting yogurt to Europe in the 80s, Mr. Filippou told me, he approached tour operators from the UK and Germany in order to find out from which cities or neighborhoods their Greece-bound tourists emanated. Then he arranged to send trial crates of yogurt to groceries in those specific locations, relying on the impetus of gustatory memory.

He was sure that the people who had tried the yogurt in Greece would be willing to pay the premium. Again, the experiment was a success, and Total yogurt gradually found its place in the refrigerators of gourmet supermarkets throughout Europe. The company is currently trying a similar approach in the U.S.: instead of a costly national ad campaign, they are sending buses that distribute free samples in various parts of the country. The buses are currently touring California, Nevada, and Florida.

Needless to say, the Filippou family--the yogurt millionaires--are the equivalent of the Greek ship-owners of the past. They are patrons of the arts and at the center of the most talked about Athenian society events.

PS: As I was writing this post, I came upon the obituary of Daniel Carasso, the founder of Danone, a very important and influential figure, the man who singlehandedly made yogurt known to the Western world. The family built on his legacy.

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