Oatly has become the latest oat milk brand to make the move to 100% British-grown oats.
The brand will now source 100% of its oats from farms in the south of England in a milestone which has been “years in the making”.
Oatly said it was a “significant step in strengthening the company’s long-term commitment to UK agriculture”.
It has estimated that it will have tripled its investment in British-grown oats by 2026, while also doubling the volume of British oats in supplied products across EMEA markets.
The brand emphasised that the taste, quality and price would not change.
The oats harvested in the UK will be transported to the brand’s AMC factory in the Netherlands, where the oats are segregated from the other oats used in the European range.
This comes following the business shelving plans for a Peterborough production facility in May last year. The site promised to create 200 jobs but was abandoned after the brand identified “new ways to serve the UK market [by] utilising existing facilities across Europe”.
Read more: Alpro announces move to 100% British oats across core oat drink lines
Oatly has said the move to UK-grown oats would help shrink its products’ climate footprint by 7%-13% by the end of 2026.
“Oatly Barista Edition remains the UK’s most popular oat drink, both with consumers and baristas. With this shift, a significant proportion of all plant-based drinks will now be made with British-grown oats,” said Bryan Carroll, UK&I general manager at Oatly.
“This change reflects our ongoing commitment to taste, sustainability and product performance, and further reinforces Oatly’s long-standing support of British farmers.”
The brand will also continue to invest in farmers who are implementing regenerative practices on farms, aligning with the company’s commitment to produce the equivalent of 100% of its oat supply through regenerative practices by 2050.
The move follows similar announcements from rival brand Alpro, which invested a “multimillion-pound” sum in its UK manufacturing estate to bring 100% British oats to its standard oat drink line in March.
The company worked with the Navara oat mill in Kettering, less than 10 miles from its own factory, to source the oats locally, mostly from farmers within 80 miles of the mill.
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