Conscious Companies: Oatly

We love oat milk. Good, smooth, slightly sweet oat milk. That’s Oatly. According to Merja Scharlin, a pioneer of oat fermentation from Finland (she released her first oat “yogurt” in 1995) Nordic oats have a smooth texture and sweet flavor because they are dried immediately after harvesting. Whereas oat crops in the US are too large to be processed as quickly, so they have time to dampen and become bitter in taste. It’s no wonder that the Swedish Oatly is our favorite oat milk (finally!) readily available in the US. We also salute their commitment to total transparency, maximum nutritional value, and minimum environmental impact.

Oatly has partnered with CarbonCloud to include the carbon footprint (CO2e) of each product, from the field to the store, printed right on the package. Although this is sure to enrage larger Big Food companies, especially in the US, Oatly thinks this practice is comparable to declaring the fat and sugar content on products, and should also be demanded by legislation. Although they realize this is a long way from being a standardized reality, they didn’t want to sit around and wait- so by the end of 2019 all Oatly products will show their carbon footprint. The calculation method used by CarbonCloud is a result of 20 years of research and is also used by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, Princeton University, and Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).

While we already use the oat milks in coffee, tea, cereal, and in cooking, we are DYING to try the Oatly frozen desserts and can’t wait for them to appear at our local grocery stores. Coffee AND Mint Choc Chip? Yeah, we’ll say it, that’s oatsome.

This post is not sponsored by, nor affiliated with, Oatly.