The Frenchy Gourmet’s kefir yogurt can be found in 30 Northern California farmers’ markets.
Jess Lander/The Chronicle
MacKenzie Chung Fegan is on leave. Here’s wine reporter Jess Lander.
For over a year, I’ve told anyone who will listen that the Bay Area’s best yogurt comes from the Napa Farmers’ Market.
People are initially skeptical, but I’ve recruited enough friends to form a small but dogmatic fan club. If I can’t make it to the market on a given Saturday, I’ll ask one of them to pick up my usual order, and I frequently do the same for many of them.
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The yogurt — light, yet smooth and thick like sour cream — comes from a vendor called the Frenchy Gourmet. There’s always a line, and if I don’t get to the market early enough, they’re usually out of my go-to flavors: lemon, mango and a wonderfully tangy, slightly sour Nutella, which I eat as a dessert. The yogurt comes in plastic, 8 oz. containers ($8, or three for $22), and it takes a ridiculous amount of self-control to refrain from finishing the whole thing in one sitting. (I have a 90% fail rate with the Nutella.)
I used to brag about Frenchy to friends outside of Napa, proud that our little city had such a delicious secret. Once, I brought them to a Chronicle gathering, and they were a unanimous hit; luscious and decadent without being too sweet or too rich.
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But then one day, I discovered that Napa wasn’t so special after all: My beloved yogurt can be found at about 30 weekly markets throughout the Bay Area — including the Outer Sunset, Burlingame, Castro Valley and Walnut Creek — and as far north as Nevada City.
I was far more impressed by this finding than upset. I wanted to know more about this illustrious yogurt company, but the backstory was absent from its website, so I called the owner Muhammad Ali, who goes by Ali.
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Like many recent farmers’ market breakouts, Frenchy was started during the COVID-19 pandemic when Ali tried to replicate the yogurt his grandmother made back in his native Tunisia. She would mix milk with jams or purees, and Ali had a hunch to add kefir cheese, a cultured dairy high in probiotics and protein that’s commonly used to reduce lactose.
At the time, Ali was living in Los Angeles and all of the markets were closed, so his family moved to Sacramento where some were still operating. He started with two markets and six flavors, and almost immediately, he knew he was on to something. “At the first market, we gave people samples and they kept saying, ‘Oh my God, this is the best yogurt I’ve ever had,’ ” Ali recalled.
Word of mouth helped him expand and now, Frenchy sells over 3,000 containers of yogurt a week in 20 flavors, including key lemon, coconut and white chocolate. Lemon is the top seller, but guava — which transports me to Hawaii every time — as well as fig, raspberry and Nutella are also very popular, said Ali, who recently relocated to the East Bay. His stands, manned by friends from Tunisia whom he refers to as his cousins, also sell kefir cheese in flavors like sun-dried tomato and jalapeño, plus spreads, like cucumber dill.
The short list of ingredients (kefir cheese, milk and fruit) are printed on the yogurt labels, and unlike commercial yogurts, there are no additives. Sometimes I’ll eat the yogurt with fruits, chia seeds or granola, but I prefer it pure, alone on my spoon.
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My conversation with Ali did restore some of my Napa pride, for he said it’s his busiest market. “A lot of people love us there,” he said, “there’s always a line and they call us to save yogurt for them.”
The Frenchy Gourmet. Available at select Bay Area farmers’ markets. thefrenchygourmet.com
Reach Jess Lander: jess.lander@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @jesslander
Dining and Cooking