About AtlantaFresh Artisan Creamery
- 10 yogurt flavors regularly available in 6-ounce sizes, including plain (also comes in 32-ounce and 16-ounce containers) and vanilla (also comes in 32-ounce container). New and seasonal flavors sometimes rotate in. Also: Nonfat frozen Greek yogurt in seven flavors (16-ounce only) and three different Greek yogurt salad dressings/dips.
- Most of the 6-ounce yogurt flavors come in 2 percent lowfat or nonfat versions. Exceptions: Chocolate Rocket (Mexico City-style chocolate), Karma Java (French Roast coffee) and Tastes Like Breakfast (maple bacon), which come in 2 percent only.
- Didn't make the cut: Key Lime and Blood Orange, two flavors founder Ron Marks tried making and ultimately rejected.
- The company store is open 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. It's at 6679 Peachtree Industrial Blvd. #M, Norcross; 678-240-4660. For a complete list of retailers, go to www.atlantafresh.com.
One of the most exciting things to hit commercial yogurt-making since “fruit on the bottom” operates from a generic-looking office park located along an access road in Norcross.
The sign outside says "AtlantaFresh." But, "Deliciously mad culinary scientists at work inside" would be an equally apt description of this 3-year-old company that caught the Greek yogurt wave early on and has been seeking out exotic flavor shores ever since.
Keep your boring blueberry, your plain-Jane peach! At AtlantaFresh, that think-outside-the-container mentality has resulted in a flavor lineup that includes Black Cherry & Port Wine, Mango-Pineapple-Habanero (aka “Tropical Sweet Heat”) and — coming in March — Bananas Foster and Strawberry, Basil, Balsamic.
(Yes, those are two separate flavors, but don’t put anything past AtlantaFresh Artisan Creamery founder Ron Marks at this point.)
“I call it the ‘Tongue of the Street,’” Marks summed up the unique approach to Greek that has caught the attention — and shelf space — of Whole Foods in 13 states, Alon’s and some 30 other supermarkets and specialty food shops around metro Atlanta. “The most successful [food] products are a combination of craftsmanship, skill and instincts about what people want to eat, even if they don’t always realize it.”
That is the AtlantaFresh recipe, said Stephen Corradini, Whole Foods' vice president of purchasing for the South region. AtlantaFresh is already his region's No. 3 best-selling Greek yogurt brand, and Whole Foods' Local Producer Loan Program has helped the creamery expand its production and distribution capabilities (Marks says AtlantaFresh produces about 1,700 cases of yogurt per week).
“The No. 1 thing is its overall taste. You can instantly feel the difference, the quality, on your tongue,” Corradini enthused. “Beyond that, it’s the creative aspect of the flavors — like the Mexican chocolate, like the maple bacon. No one else is doing that in yogurt.”
He’s not alone in declaring AtlantaFresh habanero hot. Both Food & Wine and Cooking Light magazines have heaped praise on AtlantaFresh, with the latter dubbing its velvety smooth Greek (nearly all flavors are available in nonfat, 2 percent and frozen versions) the “Perfect Yogurt.”
That’s an especially big deal, given Greek yogurt’s rock star status right now. If all yogurt is good for you, then Greek style — which is high in protein and probiotics, and low in sugar and lactose — is even better. Small wonder then that it currently accounts for 36 percent of the $6.5 billion in total U.S. yogurt sales, according to investment firm AllianceBernstein. That’s up from a mere 4 percent in 2008.
But good for you — let alone “perfect” — doesn’t come cheap. A 6-ounce container of AtlantaFresh costs $2.39 at Whole Foods and $2 at its Norcross company store, which is open three days a week. (A case of 12 is discounted to $20.) That’s at least twice the price of “regular” yogurt in supermarkets and about half a buck more than Greek-style giants like Chobani charge.
Yet it's costlier to make Greek yogurt, a painstaking process that involves separating out the water that remains after milk has been cultured (the "whey"). That means buying a lot more milk: about 300 gallons to make 100 gallons of AtlantaFresh Greek, Marks said.
But what milk! It arrives fresh and free of artificial growth hormones in the morning from Southern Swiss Dairy in Waynesboro, allowing AtlantaFresh to pitch its yogurt as “24 Hours Cow to Carton.” All the fruit fillings are made in-house, which explains all those non-rubbery peach chunks studding the popular Peach & Ginger flavor.
“Someone sits here and peels and chops 50 pounds of ginger,” said Ray Feeney, who started out selling AtlantaFresh at farmers markets two years ago and now is a key member of the nine-person staff that handles everything except delivery.
Marks, 57, grew up in western Pennsylvania, where his parents ran a general store, and he has “vivid memories” of small dairy farms’ products. A Culinary Institute of America graduate, he worked as a high-end restaurant chef, then became Applebee’s senior vice president of research and development and eventually started his own firm, Focus on Food. Business slowed when the recession hit in 2008; by then, though, Marks’ research had pointed him back to where he’d essentially started.
“Artisan creameries were being established in traditional dairy country, but no one was doing it in the Southeast,” said Marks, who opened AtlantaFresh in the old Focus on Food location. “I thought there was a vacuum.”
A vacuum that was just waiting to be filled with Strawberry, Basil, Balsamic, apparently.
“It can be a bridge of comfort for them to try something new,” Marks said of people who have maybe tried a salad with that combination but not Greek yogurt and vice versa. “It’s a win-win.”
