From Queens, Revolution Sweeps the World of Yogurt

Antonios Maridakis says that when one of the world’s most famous and well-chiseled actors headed to Mexico recently to shoot a movie, he first placed a call to Queens with a special request — for a case of yogurt.From his small office in an industrial strip on the border of the Woodside and Astoria sections of Queens, Mr. Maridakis controls a small dairy empire, importing 40 million cups of Total yogurt a year from his native Greece to be shipped to 38 American states.Creamier and less caloric than most of its American counterparts, Total has captured the attention and taste buds of the kind of New Yorkers who don’t mind spending upward of $2.50 on a small cup of plain yogurt.Homemaking guru Martha Stewart loves the stuff. So does celebrity chef Nigella Lawson. Author Jana Klauer included it in her new diet primer, “How the Rich Get Thin: Park Avenue’s Top Diet Doctor Reveals the Secrets to Losing Weight and Feeling Great.”Produced by an 80-year-old company in Greece called Fage (pronounced “fah-yeh”), the yogurt first started appearing on American shelves six years ago.The family-owned business found Mr. Maridakis to head its American operations through a small ad it placed in local newspapers.“It was exciting, because it was starting from zero and there’s not a more beautiful thing than looking at something that starts from zero and grows to a big company,” Mr. Maridakis said in his heavily accented English as he toured the company’s warehouse and its stacks of cardboard cases of yogurt. “Aside from having a family, I think this is something the most beautiful that could happen to somebody.”Mr. Maridakis, 44, who said he usually puts in 12 hours a day trying to expand the brand in America, moved to New York when he was 18 and started studying mathematics at Hunter College. He worked his way through school as a math tutor and spent his days at a fruit market in the Greek neighborhood of Astoria.While he spent many years in Astoria, Mr. Maridakis now lives in a two-family house in Flushing with his wife and young daughter. His brother lives in the adjoining unit with his family. Before taking the job with Fage, Mr. Maridakis worked for Nestlé and a Greek-American food company.Started in 1926 by the family of Athanassios Filippou, Fage is the second largest Greek food company. Because of the difficulties of exporting dairy products to America, the company in 2008 is opening a $50 million,150,000 square-foot-manufacturing plant outside of Albany that will employ 150.Until then, workers at Fage in Athens load cases of yogurt onto cargo planes bound for John F.Kennedy International Airport every day. The American staff fetches and carts the yogurt and other products, such as Feta cheese, to the 10,000-square-foot warehouse in Queens. From there, the products are distributed by truck all the way to California, with stops in many states along the way.According to Mr. Maridakis, Total is catching on so quickly — in 2000, the company sold 1.5 million cups of yogurt in America, compared with 40 million last year — because “people want to put something in their body that is nice and healthy.”The no-fat and low-fat varieties of yogurt are by far the most popular items.Asked about why Total is thicker than other yogurts and if it’s really packed with more protein, Mr. Maridakis quickly slips into his salesman pitch. The yogurt is strained to remove the liquidy whey, which makes it thicker and gives it a rich creaminess. The company uses three kilos of milk for every kilo of yogurt, he explains. However, the straining process is also said to drain some of the calcium.When the company first began exporting to America, it started with a few Greek-owned shops in Astoria, and Dean & Deluca soon came aboard. Its first big break came when the Gristedes supermarkets started stocking its shelves with Total.While the owner of Gristedes, John Catsimatidis, was born in Greece and publishes the largest Greek paper in America, Mr. Maridakis says the deal had little to do with patriotism.“It helped that he was Greek, but business is business,” Mr., Maridakis said.Up in his airy office with blonde wood floors and soaring ceilings, Mr. Maridakis points to a map of America and runs his finger across the states where he’s successfully convinced stores to stock his products.The office is dotted with framed posters of the island of Santorini, with crisp white Cycladic houses on volcanic cliffs rising from the sea. The posters look like advertisements for Parliament cigarettes.“You can just imagine sitting there,” Mr. Maridakis says wistfully while pointing to one of the posters. “And imagine, with a container of yogurt, it’s perfect.”

From Queens, Revolution Sweeps the World of Yogurt

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