Are the cola wars at an end?


Brace for the yogurt wars, as PepsiCo, long focused on battling its archrival, Coca-Cola, takes on the likes of Dannon and General Mills, not to mention Fage and Chobani.


In the most visible sign yet of its efforts to curb its reliance on soda sales, PepsiCo this month will start selling yogurt in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states.


The products will initially be manufactured in Europe by Theo Müller, a large privately held German dairy company that has formed a joint venture with PepsiCo to capitalize on the growing yogurt market in the United States.


“We’re very excited about this,” said Sam Lteif, chief executive of Müller Quaker Dairy, the joint venture. “There’s a huge opportunity for dairy in the U.S. market, and we’re optimistic about getting into it.”


So confident are the two companies that they are investing $206 million in a 363,000-square-foot plant in Batavia, N.Y., announced in February, that will employ some 180 people and churn out five billion cups of yogurt a year.


PepsiCo, under its chief executive, Indra K. Nooyi, has been working to decrease its reliance on sugary carbonated beverages and snacks by developing new products and retooling old ones to increase their nutritional quality while remaining true to the company’s more playful roots.


Ms. Nooyi calls this the “fun for you, better for you, good for you” strategy, and it has led to innovations that have reduced sodium in Lays potato chips and other snack chips and new sweeteners to reduce calories in juice products like Trop 50 and sodas like Pepsi Next.


The goal with Müller by Quaker is to add fun to yogurt, which Americans have regarded as a dutiful but not delicious snack. “It’s been an ‘I gotta have it because it’s good for me’ kind of a product,” said Dr. Mehmood Khan, who oversees PepsiCo’s global research and development. “The ‘wanna have it’ was missing.”


Or as Stefan Müller, the great-grandson of Müller’s founder, said: “Here in America, yogurt is so boring.”


He noted that Americans on average consumed 12 pounds of yogurt a year, or half as much as Canadians and a third the amount of Europeans. “We look at the products and it’s no wonder it’s so low,” he said.


Müller by Quaker will try to change that with what Mr. Lteif calls “mainstream premium” products that fill a gap between mass brands like Dannon and Yoplait and niche Greek yogurts like Fage and Chobani.


Sales of yogurt have been strong in Kroger stores across the country for the last several years, said Alan Faust, director of dairy perishable and frozen foods at the Kroger Company. “It has a healthier image and is tied to a healthier lifestyle,” Mr. Faust said. “Some Greek is even being used as a meal replacement.”


He has tasted the new Müller by Quaker products and says they represent an entirely new variety of yogurt, falling somewhere between Greek and conventional yogurts. “It’s a really high quality, flavorful product with good body texture,” he said.


Two varieties of the Müller by Quaker yogurts, one conventional and one Greek, come in square rather than traditional round packages with one corner filled with an ingredient that the consumer can add to the yogurt by folding the corner or using a spoon. Besides traditional fruit flavors like strawberry and blueberry, these supplements include caramelized almonds, tiny chocolate-covered crunch balls and granola.


A third variety is called Fruit Up because the fruit comes in a mousse that sits on top of the yogurt for the consumer to stir in. That allows the consumer to smell the peaches or raspberries as soon as the foil cover is removed.


Müller by Quaker also seeks to address one of the biggest consumer complaints about yogurt: its texture. Consumers find Greek yogurts dry and chalky, while conventional yogurt is seen as watery and tasteless.


“You have five senses, and we’re aiming to hit at least four of them with these products,” Mr. Lteif said.