The yogurt aisle
split in two.

The short version

Every brand on this map was placed using primary data only. The vertical axis is a live retailer price divided by declared net weight. The horizontal axis is a function score computed from the brand's own label. No survey, no panel estimate, no judgment about whether a product is good.

What falls out is a category that has stopped behaving like one category. Protein-positioned Greek and skyr brands occupy the entire right half of the map. Plant-based brands price like a premium and score like a dessert. Private label has quietly taken the most defensible position on the shelf. And the top of the price ladder, where you would expect the most aggressive nutrition claims, is held by coconut yogurts with two grams of protein.

If you sell yogurt, or you buy media for anyone who does, the map below is the argument. The full 36-row data set with a source link for every cell is further down the page.

Finding 01

Protein took the high ground.

Fourteen of the 36 brands are strained Greek or skyr, and not one of them scores below 56. They hold the entire right half of the map, from Great Value at 10.2 cents an ounce all the way up to Painterland Sisters at 49.5 cents. This is not a premium play or a value play. It is the whole width of the shelf.

The growth data agrees. Protein-positioned yogurt grew 23.2% in value and 16.8% in volume in the year to July 2026, against 12.2% and 7.3% for total yogurt. Protein is not a segment inside the category any more. It is the direction the category is moving.

The strategic problem this creates is crowding. When fourteen brands all cluster above 56 on function, function stops being a differentiator and becomes an entry requirement. Fage sells Total 0% and Total 5% out of the same 32 ounce price tier, 34 function points apart, which tells you the shelf will happily price two very different products identically.

FageSponsored

Finding 02

Plant-based prices like a premium and scores like a dessert.

Six of the seven plant-based brands on the map sit left of centre. Culina asks 80 cents an ounce, the highest price per ounce in the entire set, and scores 29.5, which places it below Yoplait Original. Cocojune at 64 cents scores 31.0. Lavva at 53 cents scores 35.1. The pattern is consistent: coconut fat delivers the mouthfeel, and the label reads accordingly.

Kite Hill is the exception that proves the rule. It scores 63.7, comfortably functional, and it is the only plant brand in the set using a protein isolate rather than relying on nut solids. The lesson is not that plant-based cannot compete on function. It is that competing on function requires a formulation choice most of the segment has not made.

Meanwhile the segment is contracting. Dairy-alternative yogurt is a 282.9 million dollar business, down 5.8%, at 6.7% household penetration against 80% for dairy yogurt. Chobani has exited non-dairy yogurt entirely, which is why it does not appear on this map.

NoosaSponsored

Finding 03

Private label already won value protein.

Great Value clears 84.0 on function at 10.2 cents an ounce. Simple Truth Organic clears 82.7 at 14.0 cents. Both sit in the bottom right of the map with nothing near them. The nearest branded Greek costs 82% more per ounce for a lower score.

Private label grew 14.7% against 9.9% for branded, and it is doing it in the exact quadrant every mid-tier Greek brand needs to occupy. That is the squeeze. A brand competing on protein per dollar is competing with a product that has no marketing cost to recover.

The implication for media is direct. If your differentiation is a nutrition number, private label will match it and undercut you, and no amount of paid reach fixes a parity claim at a premium price. The defensible ground is somewhere the label does not capture: sourcing, texture, culture, provenance, occasion. Those are creative problems before they are media problems.

Stonyfield OrganicSponsored

Finding 04

The top of the price ladder is empty.

Above 50 cents an ounce, no brand on this map scores better than 36, and all three brands up there are coconut. Super-premium brands average 42.8 on function. Value and mainstream brands average 62.4. You are paying more to get less.

Across all 36 brands, the correlation between log price per ounce and function score is r = -0.37, or -0.28 if you exclude private label. That is the uncomfortable finding, and it is the one worth sitting with: in this category, money buys indulgence, not nutrition.

Painterland Sisters is the closest thing to a counter-example, at 49.5 cents with a score of 62.2, and it is instructive. Organic, regeneratively farmed, lactose-free, 21 grams of protein per serving. It is the only brand in the set that is genuinely trying to be both expensive and functional, and it sits almost alone.

Siggi'sSponsored