Oat Milk Everything Event Summary

Posted on October 1st, 2020

Oat milk has emerged as the hottest trend in alternative milks. Globally, the industry is estimated to be worth $16 billion.

Oats are easier to grow than nuts. If you had an allergy to nuts and nut-based products, you could not have vegan ice cream, nut milk or creamers. Now, with oat, you can. Oat milk stands out for its deliciously creamy texture, environmentally friendly production, and a multitude of nutrition benefits.

Oat milk is made through harvesting steel cut oats which then get soaked in water for a minimum of 20 minutes. Once the oats have absorbed all the liquid, they are blended and strained through a cheese cloth. You are leftover with oat pulp, but now have a delicious glass of oat milk ready to go. Oat has a natural starchiness that acts as a natural thickener. Most plant milks split in hot drinks and do not foam like cow’s milk (the problem is the plant proteins). Oat milk foams, and the taste of oat is mostly masked by the coffee.

Oat milk has especially been admired for being environmentally sustainable. It uses the least amount of water during its production compared to other plant-based milks and oat milk has a small carbon footprint.

Oat milk contains no added sugar, has 4 grams of protein per serving, which is more protein than any other plant-based milk, has 35 percent of your daily recommended amount of calcium, is low in fat, and contains vitamins and minerals like zinc, vitamin D, and magnesium. Oat makes for such a great base. Earlier this year, Starbucks added the vegan milk to its lineup at select Starbucks Reserve stores. Chobani, another popular brand in America has announced the whole line of oat products: plain oat milk, chocolate oat milk, extra creamy plain oat milk and vanilla oat milk. They also added oat coffee creamers.

There exist several competitors, most notably Oatly, the Swedish pioneer in oat milk, as well as Silk and Planet Oat.

The opinion of many food industry analysts is oat milk tastes better than other plant-based dairy alternatives. It has a creamy consistency and it performs a lot like dairy milk in hot drinks. The trend is red hot, we are going to be keeping our eyes on it and will report recent developments

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