Five Yoghurt Trends For 2015

by Joyce Carol Oats

‘I sell yoghurt containers,’ he said.

‘I LOVE YOGHURT,’ I cried.

The man looked surprised, perhaps a little hopeful. A few days past the dawn of 2015 and fate had placed us next to each other in an early-morning British Airways transfer queue at Heathrow Airport. What do you do? he’d asked me, and I’d told him, and he didn’t know what that was. But then when I asked him out of politeness what he did, and he told me, I was full of gladness, for yoghurt is my very favorite food.

For breakfast, of course, but given the opportunity, I eat it at every single meal. Provided, that is, that the yoghurt has not been made by Americans, in which case it all too often has its fat replaced by -- just thinking of them makes me want to gag -- thickeners.

‘I hate American yoghurt!’ I said to my new friend, ‘It contains... thickeners.’

‘Yes’, said the man, with the gravitas of a man who’s in yoghurt.

‘How do you get into yoghurt?’ I said, ‘Were you just really interested in dairy culture?’

‘Gotta make a living,’ said the man, and then he proceeded to deliver five key insights about 2015 In Yoghurt:

1. The Greek yoghurt market is saturated. As if with spilt milk. Fuck you, Chobani.
2. Yoghurt containers are going to change. There are going to be some new kinds of yoghurt containers, said the man. Will this make it more difficult for us to recognise yoghurt?
3. Indian-flavored yoghurts are also on the horizon. ‘You know,’ said the man, ‘Like, curry.’ But will it contain thickeners?
4. A new kind of Australian yoghurt will soon enter the market. ‘It’s by the guys who make soy milk,’ said the man. I love those guys!
5. Savory yoghurt is going to be a thing. ‘I think they extract the sugar from, like, carrots and broccoli,’ said the man. ‘Actually, the beet flavor is good.’ Look out for the beet flavor.

We got to the front of the line and I let the yoghurt container salesman go ahead of me: because of my gratitude for these yoghurt insights, and because he was also about to miss his flight. I waved him a jaunty farewell as I, too, approached the counter.

‘I need to pick up my boarding pass,’ I said to the counter attendant, ‘for BA 1506.’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘That’s a codeshare with American, so you’ll have to pick it up over there. You were in the wrong line.’

‘Or perhaps,’ I said, with an enigmatic smile, ‘perhaps I was in exactly the right one.’