I can still remember my first sip of oat milk. The year: 2016. The place: Butler café in Brooklyn, New York, a few blocks from my old apartment (the second coffee shop in the city to carry it, I’d later learn from The New Yorker). One steaming hot and incredibly creamy latte later, and I was obsessed—along with the rest of my hipster-foodie neighborhood, not wont to sleep on a pricey plant-based milk trend. Williamsburg saw what can only be described as a run on oat milk, and Oatly, the Swedish brand that brought oat milk to the U.S., couldn’t keep up with the demand. Brooklynites got cranky—and desperate, some shelling out $20 a quart on Amazon, as the New Yorker reported at the time. (I admit only to stocking up three cartons at a time whenever my grocer got a shipment.)
Four years later, that local oat milk shortage has given way to a nationwide boon. With dollar sales rising 1,946 percent over the last two years, according to data reported by market research firm SPINS, it’s the fastest-growing alternative milk. You can now get an oat milk latte at Dunkin’ and Starbucks, and in all likelihood an oat milk version of every dairy product at Wegmans and Trader Joe’s: ice cream (delicious), cheese (meh), yogurt, butter, canned lattes. Bill Aimutis, Ph.D., director of the North Carolina Food Innovation Lab, tells SELF that he can see the nondairy wunderkind overtaking almond milk. “I think it will sustain itself in terms of popularity, and keep growing.”
So, what’s behind the ongoing oat milk fervor?
First and foremost: Have you tasted the stuff? The incredibly creamy mouthfeel, the slight sweetness. Soy milk (“the consumer didn’t care for the taste”) and almond milk (“astringent in coffee”) were never able to reach flavor fandom in a wider population, Aimutis says. Anecdotally, this tracks: In my family’s fridge full of various nondairy milks, Oatly is the only one my dairy-loyal dad deems acceptable. And I can vouch for its tastiness straight up, on cereal, in coffee, and in baked goods. Oat milk emulsifies beautifully in coffee—hence the latte craze—unlike most of its competitors. It also foams up fabulously in a homemade cappuccino, BTW. And “it’s very good for baking,” Aimutis adds.
The science behind its craveability? “We love sweet and we love fat, and with oat milk you’re getting a little of both,” Aimutis says. Many oat milks are enhanced with a little vegetable oil, which creates that buttery sensation of creaminess on your tongue, Aimutis explains. And they often contain some sugars that are naturally created during the oat milk-making process when some of the oat starch breaks down into sugar molecules.
Oat milk has also got it going on from a nutrition perspective. It’s allergen-friendly—free of tree nuts, soy, and gluten. (Not all brands are made in a gluten-free facility though, so check for the certification if you have celiac disease.) Many varieties don’t contain added sugar, which some people look for. And it enjoys a residual health halo from the industry’s marketing of oats as a heart-healthy food, thanks to the LDL-lowering beta glucan fiber—oat milk typically has one or two grams per cup. “Before people even try oat milk, they’re aware of the health promoting activities of oats in general,” Aimutis explains.
Then there’s the s-word: Sustainability. “Oat milk [tells] a better story, from a perspective of sustainability and impact on the environment, than even almond or cashew or coconut,” Aimutis says. Simply, oats are cheap and easy to grow. “We can plant oats whenever we can plant wheat and corn, whereas cashews and coconuts only grow in certain tropical regions,” Aimutis explains. Growing and processing oats also requires considerably less work and water. “Large farmers can grow oats fairly easily, whereas cashews and almonds are very labor intensive [and] more water-intensive.” (Almond milk’s bad PR due to its exorbitant water usage has tainted my love of the stuff.) And with an efficient supply chain, companies can turn around new products fast, Aimutis adds.
Last month, Oatly got the ultimate seal of cultural approval. Oprah invested in the company, as did Jay-Z and Natalie Portman. The valuation? A cool two billion dollars. Meanwhile, Aimutis is keeping his eye on new products from “the next Oatlys of the world.”
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