Kefir Kommunity

When Lifeway’s founder, Mike Smolyansky, passed away suddenly from a heart attack in 2002, his daughter, Julie, was forced to assume control of the company, making her the youngest female CEO of a publicly traded company in the United States. Investors panicked, and NASDAQ halted trading.

That was nine years ago. Since then, Julie and her brother Edward have turned Lifeway from a 70-employee business with $12 million in sales to a 280-employee juggernaut averaging $65 million in sales. And the same NASDAQ that halted trading welcomed them with open arms to ring the closing bell yesterday. 

Our proud CEO, CFO Edward Smolyansky, and over 20 members of our team were on hand in Times Square (see our Facebook page for pictures.) The bell ringing marked a fabulous culmination of our nationwide tour which kicked off in March in Anaheim, California. For the past two-and-a-half months, our 25^th anniversary bus has crisscrossed the country, stopping at college campuses, grocery stores and festivals from coast to coast – an 11-week kefir party during which we gave away hundreds of thousands of samples of kefir (including our limited edition 25^th anniversary flavor, Birthday Cake). Everyone from TV personalities to professional athletes to college professors and sorority girls rode our human-powered “blender bikes,” generating their own Lifeway Kefir smoothies. New and old fans alike boogied to our 80s beats and helped us to raise a whopping $25,000 for Healthy Kids Challenge, a non-profit organization that promotes healthy eating and physical activity for children. (How we raised the dough: Lifeway pledged to donate $1 for every minute pedaled on a blender bike by tour guests.)

“This is a time when we at Lifeway are looking backward and forward in equal measure - back to a quarter-century of new flavor and product developments that have fueled the company’s growth and transformed kefir from a niche product to a mainstream food, and forward with our new industry-first Lifeway Frozen Kefir,” Julie says. “We have built a huge base of kefir consumers that continues to expand as more people look for natural, healthy, convenient food options that also taste good. That is something to celebrate - both for us and for our customers.”

Once our kefir caravan landed in NYC, we set up shop at Penn Station, Times Square and Grand Central Station, where our neon pink and blue, 80's themed crew passed out more than 20,000 complimentary samples of our brand-new frozen kefir dessert - the first product of its kind to hit freezer aisles, packed with a 90-calories, probiotic punch. Judging by the comments on our Facebook page (Josina Williams says: “I just tried some in Time square today, completely by accident in the area. I love it!!! I will be buying your product. Thanx for the samples!!!!”), we’re expecting to see Lifeway sold alongside hot pretzels and thin crust pizza on street corners across the city.

Check out Julie on NBC, who recently featured her as an “Ultimate SuperMom.”