There Is A Yogurt War Happening On Twitter

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Americans love Greek yogurt. Once nearly unheard of on these shores, it currently accounts for half of all yogurt sales, according to The Washington Post. But you don’t necessarily need to be a market analyst to know that. If you’ve paused in front of a dairy aisle in the past few years, you’ve probably noticed the increasing options, from low-fat to full-fat, fruit at the bottom, or at the corner. And now: Greek yogurt with just 100 calories. Chobani, who many credit for the Greek yogurt boom, may be late to the 100-calorie game, but it's boldly staked its claim on the market, proclaiming in ads that it is the only truly natural 100-calorie yogurt out there. Its latest commercials are a direct slam at competitors, Dannon and Yoplait, for the use of the artificial sucralose, among other ingredients, in its lower-calorie Greek yogurts. (Chobani’s reduced-calorie yogurt also includes Stevia, a no-calorie sweetener, derived from plants.) As The New York Times reports, Dannon struck back, sending a cease and desist letter after the ad aired. The fight was taken to court, with Chobani defending its right to run the ad. Then, like any great modern beef, the battle went to Twitter, with Chobani firing off a series of tweets on Wednesday, touting its yogurt — and attacking its competitors.

Let January 13, 2016 go down as the day Big Yogurt joined Big Pharma and Big Oil to form a triumvirate of profit-hungry, deep-pocketed cabals. The news may be hard to stomach, but as Chobani cautions us,

And, in what may go down as yogurt’s version of “Give me liberty or give me death,” Chobani also tweeted:

The stakes of this Twitter rant are a bit unclear — after all, you can still buy Chobani Simply 100 whenever you want. Big Yogurt has stopped short of seizing the stocks of the brand's Stevia-laced version of Greek yogurt, imposing a lactose-rich dictatorship on the public. But who knows. In this arms race of reduced calorie Greek yogurts, apparently anything goes.
Or, in the immortal words (tweets?) of Chobani, “Is nothing sacred anymore?”