SOUTH EDMESTON, N.Y. — With unemployment still low and the competition for potential employees fierce, Chobani, Inc. has taken steps to boost its attractiveness to candidates. The company recently implemented a pay increase, the second raise this year, which boosts its total wage increase this year to between 20 percent and 30 percent. The increase […]
SOUTH EDMESTON, N.Y. — With unemployment still low and the competition for potential employees fierce, Chobani, Inc. has taken steps to boost its attractiveness to candidates.
The company recently implemented a pay increase, the second raise this year, which boosts its total wage increase this year to between 20 percent and 30 percent.
The increase applies to all hourly manufacturing employees at the plant, which has a new entry-level manufacturing employee wage of at least $18.50 per hour. The approximate average hourly wage at the plant is now $23.50, according to a release from the company.
“We want to be market leaders when it comes to our wages,” says Brandon Dansie, VP of people at the yogurt manufacturer. The wage change will hopefully help the company attract new employees while also rewarding current employees, he notes.
Compensation isn’t an exact science, Dansie says, so it’s important for a company to figure out what it is trying to accomplish when changing wages. Some companies may give salary increases but take away something else from employees, he says, and that was something Chobani wanted to avoid.
“We kept our benefit package,” he says. “We kept our bonuses. We didn’t want to play that game.”
Chobani currently employs about 800 people in South Edmeston and 2,300 across the United States including its plant in Idaho and a number of remote corporate positions. The company is actively hiring, Dansie says, and has between 20 and 30 open positions in South Edmeston. Those positions include entry-level jobs such as fillers, packers, and stackers, technical roles; and entry-level leadership roles.
Dansie acknowledges that it can be challenging to recruit for the company’s rurally located plant. “We certainly do your typical advertising,” he says, including ads on social media. For positions higher up the corporate ladder, the company uses professional recruiters.
“Occasionally we find someone from the area who wants to move back,” he adds.
The company’s biggest marketing tool when it comes to potential employees is the brand itself, he says. Many are familiar with the Chobani products, while others are familiar with founder Hamdi Ulukaya’s TED Talk from 2019.
“We have a very strong brand that people want to work for,” Dansie says. “That’s a real recruiting advantage for us.”
Through new employees and new products, Chobani continues to grow, innovate, and try new things, he says. One of those new things includes the company’s biggest product expansion to date — the addition of oat-based drinks and blends along with dairy-based creamers in 2019. In 2021, the company launched Chobani Coffee ready-to-drink coffees that feature Chobani’s oat milks and dairy creamers.
Chobani had also planned an IPO, filing paperwork last November; however it withdrew that in early September. According to the IPO filing, the company produced net sales of $1.2 billion and a net loss of
$24 million for the first nine months of 2021.
Chobani got its start in 2005 when Ulukaya, founder and CEO, used a Small Business Administration loan to purchase an old Kraft yogurt plant in South Edmeston. In 2007, the first Chobani yogurt cups hit grocery store shelves. In 2011, the company broke ground on a second plant in Twin Falls, Idaho and bought Bead Foods in Australia.
