READING 2 Immigrants: Building Businesses and Communities

IMMIGRANTS:

Building Businesses and Communities

Read the following article. Pay special attention to the words in bold. 7.3

The United States is home to many immigrants and refugees who have come for different reasons. In 1994, Hamdi Ulukaya immigrated to the United States. When he arrived from Turkey with $3,000, he was hoping to learn English and find work. Today his Greek yogurt company, Chobani, has annual sales of about $1.5 billion and employs more than 2,000 people.

Mr. Ulukaya grew up in a small village in eastern Turkey. Many of the villagers were shepherds1 who took their sheep, goats, and cows into the mountains when the weather was warm. They made yogurt and cheese from the milk. When he was studying business and English in New York state, he had the idea to start a feta cheese2 company, making cheese from his family’s recipe. Then he saw an ad for a yogurt factory for sale. He bought the factory and started a new company, Chobani, which means shepherd in Turkish.

In 2010, the company was growing and Ulukaya needed more employees. It was important to him to support the community around his factory. Many immigrants and refugees from Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe were living in the area. They needed work and he needed workers. He gave them help with language, training, and transportation, and in return they worked hard. Years later, he opened the world’s largest yogurt factory in Twin Falls, Idaho. He hired refugees from the community to work at the new factory. Today approximately 30 percent of his employees are immigrants or refugees. Ulukaya said, “The minute that they got the job, that’s the minute they stopped being refugees.” There are people from 19 different countries working at Chobani.

Ulukaya knew his employees were working hard, but they were still struggling to support their families. In 2016 he announced a profit-sharing program for employees, which is very rare in manufacturing. Mr. Ulukaya said, “I’ve built something I never thought would be such a success, but I cannot think of Chobani being built without all these people. Now they’ll be working to build the company even more and building their future at the same time.” When he immigrated, Ulukaya was looking for work. He created it not only for himself, but for many other immigrants, too.

1 shepherd: a person who takes care of sheep 2 feta cheese: cheese made from the milk of a goat or sheep

Hamdi Ulukaya, left, with employees in Twin Falls, Idaho, U.S.