Hamdi Ulukaya, the founder and CEO of Chobani, the Greek yogurt leader, announced plans to build a $1.2 billion production facility in Rome, N.Y.
during a press conference at Griffiss Business and Technology Park. Tuesday, April 22, 2025. (N.
Scott Trimble | [email protected]) N. Scott Trimble | strimble@syracuse.
com Rick Moriarty | [email protected] Rome, N.Y.
— With nearly $4 billion in sales a year and demand for his Greek yogurt rising, Chobani founder and CEO Hamdi Ulukaya decided last year he needed to build another manufacturing plant. But where? He realized it had to be big so the plant could meet the company’s growing production needs. That meant he had to find a sizeable plot of land.
Next, he needed a place with many dairy farms because the plant was going to need a lot of milk — 12 million pounds a day. And finally, he needed a place where he could find workers to fill the 1,000 jobs the plant would create. Since he had yogurt plants in Twin Falls, Idaho, and South Edmeston in Upstate New York, he decided it would make sense to build his next one somewhere between the two states.
In the end, instead of looking in the middle of the country, he leaned hard into Rome, N.Y. The city of 32,000 is just 45 miles north of the former Kraft Foods dairy plant where Chobani got its start and grew into the most popular Greek yogurt in the U.
S. “Chobani is New York, and I am New York made,” he told about 200 people who gathered in Rome Tuesday for the announc.
