Greek Yogurt Leader Chobani Acquires Plant-Based Meal Startup Daily Harvest

US dairy giant Chobani has acquired plant-based startup Daily Harvest as part of a move into the frozen ready meal category.

Known for its whole-food plant-based bowls and smoothies, New York startup Daily Harvest has been acquired by Chobani for an undisclosed sum.

The deal marks the latter’s entry into the ready meal category, and is its second major takeover in two years, following its $900M purchase of La Colombe Coffee Roasters.

Following the acquisition, Daily Harvest CEO Ricky Silver indicated that he will continue in his role, as will the rest of the brand’s team. “I am grateful for the opportunity to be a part of this next chapter within an organisation that has never been afraid to disrupt and has remained true to their purpose every step of the way,” he said.

“All the things you love will stay the same. Your plan, your favourite items, our website, your Care team – are all here and unchanged,” added Silver. “What will be new are the exciting possibilities ahead: fresh ideas, new innovations, and continued dedication to making your experience even better.”

For Chobani, the acquisition of Daily Harvest – once valued at $1.1B – follows a period of significant capacity expansion efforts, having recorded $2.7B in retail sales last year.

“When you bring together bold ideas, good people, and a belief in better – you create something powerful. We both believe food can change lives. Now we get to do it together,” said Chobani founder and CEO Hamdi Ulukaya.

Daily Harvest’s “high highs” and “uniquely difficult” lows

The deal comes a decade after Daily Harvest was founded by Rachel Drori, who was the firm’s CEO until 2023. It sells a range of savoury bowls, soups, pasta dishes, breakfast bowls, snackable bites, protein powder, and smoothies.

It has raised over $133M to date, with investors including tennis legend Serena Williams and actress and entrepreneur Gwyneth Paltrow. The startup has evolved its product offering over the years. At one point, it sold plant-based milk concentrates, but withdrew them after poor sales.

Last year, it began offering a GLP-1 companion collection of meals, with dishes like broccoli and white bean soup, dragonfruit and lychee smoothie, and bean and cabbage bowl. This was in response to “relatively slow” sales, Silver had said, as the food industry adapted to the rise of Ozempic and gut wellness.

As part of that push, it launched a line of ready-to-blend smoothies high in protein and fibre earlier this year, partnering with another tennis star, Sloane Stephens. The US Open champion’s Doc & Glo body care brand is working with Daily Harvest to highlight their “commitment to supporting active lifestyles and overall wellbeing”, according to the announcement.

Daily Harvest’s journey hasn’t been without controversy. In 2022, it had to withdraw its newly launched Crumbles product due to the use of tara flour, an ingredient it had self-determined as safe, but was linked to severe gall bladder issues in hundreds of consumers. The FDA officially declared tara flour as unsafe last year.

The incident led to a class-action lawsuit, in which the firm denied any wrongdoing but agreed to settle for $23M in 2023. Two of its suppliers paid out another $7.7M in a similar case last year. Drori stepped down as CEO a year after the recall, passing the baton to then supply chain chief Silver.

“We have navigated some incredibly high highs as well as some uniquely difficult challenges. But those are the realities of building something purposeful and meaningful. As the old saying goes, if it was easy, everyone would do it,” Silver said after the Chobani deal.

“This moment is the culmination of years of hard work, perseverance, and belief in our mission to make healthy, sustainable food accessible,” Drori added in a social media post. “Chobani is the perfect home for Daily Harvest – our missions align so deeply, and we couldn’t be more excited to continue growing together.”

Chobani’s Daily Harvest acquisition part of a larger trend

Chobani’s portfolio already includes its flagship yoghurts, an oat milk line, coffee creamers, and La Colombe’s coffee SKUs, but with Daily Harvest, it is now expanding into “wholesome, ready-to-make meals”.

The dairy giant recently announced a $1.2B investment in a 1.4 million sq ft facility in New York that it said would shift its business towards “a new dimension”. It is also expanding the capacity of its Idahi plant by 50% through a $500M investment.

“With Chobani’s world-class manufacturing, distribution, and retail expertise, our goal is for Daily Harvest to reach every home in America,” the company said in a press release.

While sales of meat analogues have continued to suffer amid concerns around ultra-processing, brands like Daily Harvest stand to gain with the shift towards whole-food eating. Its acquisition is the latest in a long and growing list of M&As in the plant-based sector.

In the US alone, Wicked Kitchen, Nuggs, and Blackbird Foods were all taken over by Ahimsa Companies last year, while vegan cheesemaker Vertage was purchased by Misha’s Inc this January. And earlier this month, dairy giant Danone bought dairy-free kids nutrition brand Kate Farms.

It comes at a time when the food industry faces major uncertainty under Robert F Kennedy Jr’s reign as health secretary, who has promised to revamp the country’s food supply in his bid to Make America Healthy Again. If Casey Means joins him in the administration as surgeon general, plant-based meat brands could further lose out, but whole-food-focused businesses could win big.

In an op-ed for Green Queen after RFK Jr’s confirmation, Daily Harvest’s Silver wrote: “People are pissed with the current state of affairs, and they should be. For decades, the industrial food system has focused on making cheap, addictive products while the industrial agriculture complex has flooded crops with chemicals to prop up a handful of commodities in service of petroleum, plastics and a cheap food system.”

“Meanwhile, our healthcare system, driven by siloed expertise and big pharma, has prioritised treating illness over prevention and holistic paths to healthy outcomes,” he added, praising Means for “harnessing this political moment” and “aligning her fight with those who are willing to listen”.