Boston Globe, MA
Aug 11 2004

Yogurt: The culture catches on
It’s creamy, satisfying, and healthy, and Americans are finally
diving in
By Joe Yonan, Globe Staff

ANDOVER — The story is familiar to anyone who has seen Bob and Alice
Colombosian mug for the camera in those jaunty commercials for the
company they sold long ago. This country’s first commercially made
yogurt dates back to 1929 and to the Andover farm where Bob’s mother,
Rose, first heated up milk on a wooden stove, stirred in some starter
from her native Armenia, and let the cultures work their magic.

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These days, the Colombosians have retired to the site of the former
farm here, and Colombo Yogurt is made by Yoplait-Colombo, a division
of General Mills and the top player in a $2.8 billion industry that
is growing as rapidly as the bacteria that turn milk into yogurt. The
industry, in fact, has gone against the trend of other dairy
products: While US consumption of milk dropped by almost 13 percent
between 1992 and 2002, per capita consumption of yogurt was up by 64
percent, continuing a steady rise since the 1950s.

The most tangible evidence of the explosion is lined up in the
supermarket dairy case. Where once a handful of companies sold a few
varieties, consumers now face an array of choices that is starting to
resemble the European model. Drinks, desserts, and products aimed at
babies and kids are driving the growth. “There’s squeezable,
drinkable — I haven’t seen wearable yet — but just about everything
else,” says Gary Hirshberg, president and CEO of Stonyfield Farm, the
New Hampshire company that has become the No. 3 seller of yogurt
nationwide and is top in the natural category. Yogurt has been around
for at least 4,000 years and has long been a staple of the Middle
Eastern and European diets. Americans are relatively late to the
party. “We can’t claim to have invented this craze,” Hirshberg says.
“If you go to Europe, not only will you see 100 meters of shelf space
relative to the 20 meters that we have in the US dedicated to yogurt,
but you’ll also see as much as 50 percent of the shelf there is now
in drinkable form.”

The influence is starting to go both ways, though, as European
companies look to the US market, not only for sales but for lessons.
Group Danone, the French company that makes Dannon, recently bought a
majority stake in Stonyfield Farm. But Hirshberg says a unique
arrangement leaves him in control of the board and the company’s
direction. Danone has brought him to European plants to tell the
story of how Stonyfield has managed to become 80 percent organic
while reaching $163 million in annual sales.

The United States still has a long way to go before it catches Europe
in all things yogurt. In Spain, Hirshberg says, Dannon’s
super-cultured yogurt drink Actimel outsells Coca-Cola, and that’s
because Europeans have long understood yogurt’s health benefits,
which have been studied and trumpeted for centuries. One benefit is
that yogurt is an excellent source of calcium and protein, but it’s
the live and active cultures that make it unique. Some yogurts have
other cultures, but they all contain lactobacillus bulgaricus and
streptococcus thermophilus, which convert milk sugar (lactose) into
lactic acid, giving yogurt its tart taste and thickened texture.

Evidence has shown benefits to gastrointestinal health and the immune
system, and yogurt is easier to digest than milk for people with
lactose intolerance, says Simin Meydani, Tufts University professor
of nutrition. In two reviews of previous studies, Meydani and her
colleagues call for further research to better understand yogurt’s
benefits. “We need to conduct larger studies,” she says.

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Some companies include more than the basic two cultures in the little
plastic containers, partly because different cultures are linked to
different benefits. The National Dairy Council says yogurt cultures
may improve intestinal health, protect against ulcers, lower
cholesterol, enhance immunity, and even protect against certain
cancers. Stonyfield Farm, for one, includes six cultures, and adds a
natural fiber to help increase calcium absorption.

With so many differences among the brands, the National Yogurt
Association advises health-conscious consumers to read labels. Some
yogurts are heat-treated after fermentation, meaning that all those
potentially beneficial cultures are killed. The association has
established a special seal for products that contain a minimum amount
of live and active cultures and is petitioning the Food and Drug
Administration to establish a clearer standard. “We want customers to
be assured that if they buy something called yogurt, it has a certain
amount of dairy product in it, and a specific amount of live and
active cultures in it,” says the association’s president, Leslie
Sarasin.

Consumers, meanwhile, are divided between newer converts, who may be
more inclined to eat the flavored varieties, and the faithful, who
prefer things plain and are buyers of the large 32-ounce containers.

Maxine Wolfson of Cranston, R.I., is something of a purist. She first
ate yogurt as a teenager in the 1970s when visiting Israel, in the
form of a drained variety the Israelis call labneh. Wolfson, now 50,
still sometimes strains the liquid from her yogurt to achieve a
similar cream-cheese consistency. “I’ll spread it on bread and put
honey on it, or a slice of cheese with herbs and spices, and make a
sandwich,” she says. She has always preferred the plain variety,
mixed with muesli in the morning and as a substitute for sour cream
or mayonnaise in recipes. Her daughter, 12-year-old Meri, though, has
gone a different direction. “When she was little, she would eat the
plain stuff with fruit, but now she has to have the kind that has 12
scoops of sugar in it,” Wolfson says.

Sugar or not, yogurt certainly beats a bag of chips when it comes to
snacking. And according to research by the NPD Group, yogurt is at
the forefront of a trend toward healthier eating among children. The
average child under 13 ate yogurt 11 more times in 2003 than in 1999.

The truest purists, of course, make their own. The Colombosians
demonstrate the technique in the Andover kitchen that was once part
of the company’s farm. They heat up whole milk on the stovetop, stir
in nonfat dry milk for extra body, cool it down, then add a few
tablespoons of plain yogurt as a starter. They pour the mixture into
empty yogurt containers — Colombo, of course — and let them sit in
a barely warm oven for a few hours. “The shorter the set, the finer
the taste, the sweeter,” says Bob, 78. “The longer the set, the
tarter.”

While they wait for the cultures to do their thing — about three
hours or so — Alice, 75, opens the refrigerator and pulls out a bowl
of fruit and three little cups of Colombo: lemon meringue, orange
creme, and cherry vanilla. “I prefer plain yogurt, and so do my
children,” she says. “But not the grandchildren. They like these.”

It’s not only children whose reluctant palates sometimes need a
little nudge to try yogurt. Wolfson says her husband, Paul, would
make “unprintable” comments to describe what he thought of the food
— until she left some strained yogurt in the refrigerator’s cheese
drawer one day. “He said, `Hey! This stuff’s good! What is it?’ “