Lifeway Foods, Inc. LWAY

What this company does

Lifeway's primary product is drinkable kefir, a cultured dairy product that it manufactures, directly and through co-packers, and markets under the Lifeway, Fresh Made and GlenOaks Farms brand names as well as under private labels on behalf of certain customers. Its product categories also include European-style soft cheeses such as farmer cheese, white cheese and Sweet Kiss, cream, drinkable yogurt, a children's kefir line called ProBugs, and other dairy items consisting primarily of Fresh Made butter and sour cream. During 2025, approximately 95% of its revenue was derived from products manufactured at its own facilities, which it operates in Morton Grove, Illinois; Waukesha, Wisconsin; Niles, Illinois; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its primary market is the United States, though distributors based there also sell its products to retailers in Mexico, portions of Central and South America, and the Caribbean, and its products reach consumers in France, Ireland, and the Middle East under third-party co-manufacturing agreements and in-country broker and distributor arrangements. During the year ended December 31, 2025, two customers together accounted for 24% of its total net sales. As of December 31, 2025, it employed 293 full-time and two part-time employees, of which 97 were members of a union bargaining unit in Illinois. Lifeway operates as a single reportable segment, with substantially all of its consolidated revenues derived from the sale of cultured dairy products produced using the same processes and materials and sold through a common network of distributors and retailers in the United States. Lifeway was founded in 1986 by Michael Smolyansky, ten years after he and his family emigrated from Eastern Europe to the United States, and was the first to introduce kefir to the U.S. consumer on a commercial scale, initially catering to ethnic consumers in the Chicago, Illinois metropolitan area.

Written from the business description in Lifeway Foods, Inc.'s annual report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, filed 17 March 2026. Every sentence was checked against that document before publication.