The billionaire behind Chobani

A shuttered plant, a small-business loan and Americans' growing taste for Greek-style yogurt combined to make 40-year-old Turkish immigrant Hamdi Ulukaya a billionaire.

Chobani, the bestselling yogurt brand in the United States, has given Ulukaya a net worth of $1.1 billion, according to Bloomberg data. He is founder and sole owner of Chobani Inc., whose sales have quintupled since 2009, and he has never appeared on an international wealth ranking.

Based in Norwich, N.Y., the company -- formerly known as Agro-Farma Inc. -- began producing Chobani five years ago. It controls about 17 percent of the U.S. yogurt market, more than double the share of Yoplait Original, according to Chicago-based market research firm SymphonyIRI Group. The Yoplait brand is made by Golden Valley-based General Mills Inc.

"Chobani's growth is unbelievable," said Sam Hamadeh, chief executive of PrivCo, a New York-based firm that analyzes private companies' financial data, in an interview earlier this month. "If you blocked out its name, you'd think it's a software company."

Chobani says on its website that it processes more than 3 million pounds of milk every day. The company's revenue more than doubled to $745.6 million in the year ended May 13, 2012, according to London-based research company Mintel Group Ltd. The company's $1.1 billion valuation is based on the average enterprise value-to-sales and enterprise value-to-EBITDA multiples of two publicly traded dairy companies, Danone SA and Saputo Inc.

Ulukaya's grip on the company is being threatened by competitors and his ex-wife, Ayse Giray, a pediatrician, who sued him in New York last month. She is seeking more than $1.5 billion in damages.

The billionaire, in an e-mailed statement sent by Nicki Briggs, a company spokeswoman, said the suit is "without merit." He declined to discuss his net worth.

He got into the yogurt business in 2005, after seeing a classified advertisement for a factory near Utica, N.Y., that Kraft Foods Inc. had closed. He bought the facility with help from a Small Business Administration loan. The first cases of Chobani Greek yogurt were shipped to supermarkets less than two years later.

Since 2009, sales of Chobani have increased almost 400 percent, according to PrivCo. That surge has been fueled in part by Americans' appetite for Greek-style yogurt, which contains less sugar and more protein than the regular variety. Greek yogurt is strained to remove excess liquid, leaving the concentrated whey protein behind. A 6-ounce serving of Chobani yogurt contains 13 grams of protein.