Beny Yogurt: A Gut Feeling, with Kiki Couchman

If you had told seven-year-old Kiki Couchman that she'd grow up to start a probiotic Greek yogurt company, she might've handed you a glass of Meyer lemonade and a tomato from her backyard and said, "Cool, want to join my book club too?" Because Kiki has always been that kind of girl: thoughtful, creative, entrepreneurial in spirit, and deeply community-driven.

Raised in the small town of Sonoma, California (yes, wine country), Kiki grew up with dirt under her fingernails, a garden full of tomatoes, and an early education in both agriculture and hospitality. Her father grew grapes and sold them to winemakers. Her mother turned their backyard into a gathering space for neighbors and friends. "There was this sense of aliveness," she tells me. "Of building something physical, something shared."

It makes perfect sense then that she would eventually co-found Beny Yogurt, a new player in the organic dairy space that is already making waves before its official launch. Built around gut health, ancient probiotic strains, and a pinch of modern aesthetic magic, Beny isn’t just another yogurt brand, it’s a love letter to the body and the planet.

Alana (on left) and Kiki (on right)

The Aha Moment

Beny began, as all great businesses do, with a personal story. Kiki met her best friend and co-founder Alana at Stanford University. At the time, Alana began culturing her own yogurt after dealing with chronic hormone and gut issues. Pills and powders didn’t work. So she turned to food.

What she realized? Most commercial yogurts don’t actually contain the probiotic strains we need. So she began making her own, using the most beneficial strains for the human microbiome. The results were incredible.

"We both hit that moment in life of asking: what do we want to do with our time? How do we want to spend our hours?" Kiki says. "And it was clear that building this together, bringing this product to more people, was the answer."

The Brand

So why the name Beny? It comes from "lebeny," an ancient Assyrian word for yogurt, also historically used as a euphemism for life. The brand's mission mirrors this idea: to bring more life to your gut, and in turn, your whole self.

And the color blue? After testing everything from orange ("looked like salsa") to pink ("too cookie dough"), blue won out as the cleanest, calmest, most dairy-aisle-shelf-popping hue. "We wanted to convey creamy, fresh, premium and playful all at once," Kiki laughs. "No big deal."

Building in Public

With a shelf life of only 6-8 weeks, the Beny team knew that before hitting stores, they needed to build a community. So Kiki did what any first-time CPG founder might dread: she got on camera.

"We joke that our go-to-market strategy is 'Kiki becomes an influencer,'" she says. "And honestly, it’s been really vulnerable. I went from Stanford and private equity to now filming yogurt TikToks and talking about gut health on Instagram."

But it’s working. Through pop-ups, brand collabs, walking clubs, and community tastings, Beny has already hosted over 17 in-person events in just a few months.

"Our goal is simple: when we land on shelves, our audience is already activated, already loyal. They've tasted the product, shared it with friends, and feel like they're a part of the story."

The Real Talk

Behind the sunny branding and aesthetic packaging is the messiness of building from scratch.

Organic milk shortages. Self-doubt. Crying toddlers during early morning demos. And that pesky internal voice that wonders: Am I doing enough? Am I good enough?

"I'm a perfectionist and a people pleaser," Kiki confesses. "There are days I wish I had stayed in private equity. The path was stable, respectable, and clear. But this… this path makes me feel alive. I get to merge all my passions: nutrition, agriculture, community, and human connection."

When asked about Kiki’s relationship with her inner world, “therapy has helped, a lot. Every week I go to therapy and unpack the layers of vulnerability this journey brings. It's not easy to build in public. But it's made me more honest, more grounded, and more myself.

On Success

So what does success look like to her?

"I want to create something that gets acquired for a hundred million dollars," she says, half-laughing, half-serious. "But also, success is in the now. In bringing yogurt to an office this morning and watching people genuinely enjoy it. It’s in the building, not just the outcome." Well said!

Still, she’s honest about the pressure. "Sometimes it’s not about money. It’s about being seen. About someone else saying, 'This is valuable. You made something valuable.'"

The Why

When I ask Kiki to strip it all back - beyond the startup buzz, beyond the founder identity crisis, beyond the yogurt-splattered pop-ups, she lands on something both soulful and sincere.

"I care about human health and planetary health. I studied human biology, I grew up on a farm, my mom is an amazing cook. Food and where it comes from is my whole world. Benny lets me live that out, and share it. It makes me feel more like me."

It’s Written In The Stars

Kiki is a Libra. She craves balance and aesthetics, loves routine, and feels physically off when life gets too chaotic. "I care about how things look, how they feel, and how they connect people," she says.

Yogurt, it turns out, is her perfect medium.

If you have a good gut feeling about this startup, just like we do, then follow Beny Yogurt on instagram and tell Kiki we say hi. 

Interviewed & written by Alysha Malik