LONDON \u2013 Danone\u2019s lawsuit against Chobani over protein claims makes it clear the French dairy company sees its U.S. rival as a threat in one of the few food groups seeing a boost from weight-loss drug users both during and after they get their GLP-1 fix: yogurt.<\/p>\n
Danone, which has struggled to meet growing consumer demand \u200bfor high-protein products, sued Chobani in a Manhattan federal court on Monday, accusing it of inflating protein claims on labels on multiple-serving \u200ctubs of \u200cChobani 20G Protein, which it calls a direct rival to its Oikos Pro in the ultra-high-protein yogurt \u200bcategory. The battle for protein supremacy is particularly important in the United States, where growing numbers of GLP-1 weight-loss drug users are seeking out protein-heavy products to combat muscle wastage. A consumer study by Boston Consulting Group showed that unlike products such as \u2060protein shakes, yogurt is among a handful of foods that see a more permanent boost from weight-loss drugs.<\/p>\n
\u201cHigh-protein foods like yogurt or … meat seem to \u2060increase in frequency during and even more after stopping GLP-1s,\u201d Lauren Taylor, managing director and senior partner at BCG, said.<\/p>\n
The Paris-based company accused Chobani of copying its product and misleading consumers to improve sales, allegations Chobani dismissed. Danone \u200balso said Chobani\u2019s methods were allowing it to undercut \u2060Danone\u2019s \u20ac1 billion Oikos brand on price. Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya said Danone was \u201cthrowing things out there\u201d to create damaging headlines for the privately held New York company, which he founded in 2007.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn \u2060a way, I am kind \u200bof laughing at it,\u201d Ulukaya said. \u201cWe never add external protein to our products. \u200bWe will never mislead anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
Danone, in a statement, said it believes consumers should be able to make product \u200bcomparisons with \u201cclear, accurate \u200cand consistent nutrition information.\u201d It said Chobani\u2019s multiserve labeling inflates its serving size, which it believes is misleading to consumers, rendering them unable to make \u201can accurate comparison between products.\u201d<\/p>\n
Danone, which highlighted its struggles to meet extremely high demand for high-protein yogurts in the second half of 2025, is steadily adding more production capacity. But Barclays \u200canalysts said in May that investors are getting nervous for what they see as a lack of urgency around the recovery of Danone\u2019s U.S. dairy business. The company\u2019s shares are down 15% this year, compared with an 11% rise in the MSCI World Index.<\/p>\n
\u201cCompetitors, notably Chobani, (are) doing a much better job and growing currently at more than 20%,\u201d Barclays said. \u201cThere is a feeling that Danone has been too slow to add \u200bcapacity \u200band perhaps it needs to spend more to compete with aggressive competitors such as Chobani.\u201d According to NielsenIQ \u200bdata shared by Chobani, the company\u2019s U.S….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON \u2013 Danone\u2019s lawsuit against Chobani over protein claims makes it clear the French dairy company sees its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[31587,31586,8,33,31588],"class_list":["post-44963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-chobani","tag-danone","tag-japan","tag-nihon","tag-yogurt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}