Dairy - yoghurt 2025: Brits turn to natural, full-fat yoghurts

There’s no stopping natural yoghurt. Yet again, it’s the category’s star thanks to its full-fat, minimally processed credentials. Natural lines have played a major role in growing yoghurt’s volumes 6.6%. That’s 41.1 million extra kilos.

Brands to benefit from demand for natural yoghurts include standout performer Fage – up 50.2% in volumes – and Yeo Valley, which has grown kilos 9.3%. It is “heartening to see more consumers embrace natural Whole Foods and we’re delighted to be growing by making these foods more accessible”, says a spokesperson for Yeo Valley.

Other players are working on making their yoghurts cleaner. Take Onken. In February, it unveiled Kiddos, a range made with only three ingredients: whole milk, fruit and “just a hint” of sugar. Six months later, the brand expanded its Naked range with Big Pots – 350g packs of Raspberry and Mango. They’re made with the same three ingredients as Kiddos.

“These launches and our commitment to natural goodness helped Onken maintain a solid position in a competitive category,” says brand manager Greg Brady.

Similar moves were made by other children’s brands. Yoplait, for instance, reduced the sugar content of two of its kids’ brands in January. Petits Filous now contains 8.9g per 100g, a 4.3% reduction. Frubes has dropped 8.3% of sugar to 9.9g per 100g.

“The biggest challenge around the reformulation of products that are already in the market is to ensure taste parity, especially for kids,” says Antoine Hours, GM at Yoplait. “It is important that we take a gradual approach to reformulation to ensure we don’t lose any shoppers along the way.”

The supplier’s health-focused work didn’t end there. In September, Yoplait unveiled Petits Filous Natural Kids Yoghurt + Calcium & Vitamin D (see Top Launch, below).

It’s a launch that’s bang on trend. Products that “offer additional nutritional and functional benefits” including protein, calcium and gut health benefits are doing particularly well, says Zack Cunningham, Danone head of category & commercial planning for dairy.

That explains why Biotiful Gut Health was acquired by Müller in April. The brand’s performance shows no sign of slowing down, increasing by 73% in value and 77.5% in volume. It’s now worth £14.7m in yoghurt. 

“We’ve seen a clear shift in shopper behaviour, with consumers increasingly seeking out natural products while still prioritising taste and texture,” said Alessandra Zehnder, Biotiful Gut Health head of marketing.

There’s still room in yoghurt for indulgence, however. That’s if the 48.8% volume growth for the burgeoning Müller Bliss is anything to go by.