Easterners discover love of Oregon yogurt from the Springfield Creamery

Six days a week, hundreds of cases of Nancy’s Yogurt emerge from refrigerated trucks onto the sidewalks of New York City, then are whisked into dairy cases of tiny Greenwich Village natural food shops and swank Upper West Side supermarkets.

By ROSEMARY CAMOZZI – The Register-Guard

http://www.helenair.com/articles/2003/12/28/business/e02122803_03.txt

Many of these stores order daily from the Nancy’s line, says Wright Polak, a New York City-based natural foods broker who has worked with the Springfield Creamery, makers of the Nancy’s line, for three years.

"They do an amazing amount of volume," Polak says.

It hasn’t always been thus.

When the creamery began shipping to the East Coast a few years ago, distribution was on-again-off-again, Polak says. Store buyers grew faithful only after getting many customer requests.

"Once there’s a devoted customer base, the retailers will continue stocking it, come hell or high water," Polak says.

Several years ago, the creamery set itself a goal of becoming a nationwide retailer. That’s no easy task in the cutthroat food wholesaling business.

But this past September, the creamery passed an important milepost, offering its products for sale in all 50 states.

Distribution is through regional warehouses of United Natural Foods International, the leading U.S. distributor of natural and organic foods. UNFI supplies more than 14,000 stores, including large natural foods chains, independent natural products retailers and conventional supermarkets.

Reaching a deal with UNFI was key, says Sue Kesey, co-owner of the creamery with her husband, Chuck. Via UNFI, the creamery can maintain a strong presence in big natural food chains such as Whole Foods and Wild Oats.

"You need a presence in the whole country to be able to promote products in all those stores," she says. "We had to be in their radar as more than a regional player."

But like the cultured products the creamery makes, the expansion is taking a long time.

"We’ve made a commitment to do this," Kesey says, "but it’s a slow build. That’s what we do best."

This is a great time for the business to enlarge its distribution, says Jerry Dryer, an independent dairy industry analyst and publisher based in Chicago.

"I see a lot of momentum going in the food business for ‘small is better,’ " Dryer says, adding that the East Coast has few companies that resemble Springfield Creamery.

"The customer is looking for small, innovative manufacturers."

Yogurt sales have surged in the last 20 years. In 1982, U.S. consumers bought 600 million pounds of yogurt, says James Miller, a dairy analyst for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. By 2002, that had risen to 2.1 billion pounds.

The purity of the Springfield Creamery line sets it apart from many rivals, Dryer says.

According to the U.S. Agriculture Department, organic dairy was the fastest-growing segment of the organic food industry in the 1990s, with sales up more than 500 percent between 1994 and 1999.

Springfield Creamery, which has about 50 employees, makes conventional and organic yogurt, cottage cheese, sour cream, cream cheese and kefir. About 20 Oregon farms supply milk to the creamery.

The Nancy’s line has been available in natural foods stores on the West Coast for more than 30 years and in Fred Meyer stores for 20 years. It can also be found in Safeway stores.