Bezi’s retail-first strategy and in-house distribution allow the labneh brand to keep costs low, quickly measure velocity, and fine-tune their approach with their New York City retail customers.
Bezi’s co-founders, Ilay Karateke and Hasan Bahcivan, decided against a direct-to-consumer model, opting instead for retail as a more logistically efficient approach for the brand’s refrigerated labneh, Karateke explained.
Bezi is currently available in 75 stores across New York City including boutique shops to local supermarkets.
Both co-founders are cheesemaking experts and developed a clean label labneh using an ultra-filtration process that reduces lactose for a thicker texture and adds sodium alginate as a natural preservative to stand out among existing labneh, dips and spreads.
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Reducing package size helped Bezi stand out on shelves
Using retail shelves as “the biggest advertising billboard” to stand out from other dips and spreads, the co-founders opted for rectangular packaging “that stands straight” and takes up less space for more containers to be stocked to traditional, round hummus containers, Karateke said.
Within dips and spreads, labneh is its own category with an opportunity to create different usage occasions that emphasize community and dining together, she explained.
Inspired by the co-founders’ Turkish heritage, Bezi harkens to how labneh and other mezzes are used in a meal – which is usually surrounded by people and community.
“This is a new category. It needs to also indicate how you would use this. What kind of lifestyle does this actually anchor?” Karateke said.
Bezi’s community-oriented approach also inspired its branding. The brand features a bold ‘B,’Karateke said.
“We want to build something that is bold and craveable. So, it was anchored on this letter ‘B’ for a long time. ‘B’ is a very delicious letter if you think about it. It looks like a labneh dollop,” she added.
The name Bezi was inspired from the word “bez” which in Turkish refers to the “cheese cloth” used to make labneh or cheese, Karateke said.
“Everything we did on the packaging was quite purposeful to have that vision of making labneh a category, and it starts with out we look on the shelf,” through packaging and design, she added.