Where did it all go so wrong for oat milk?

Like many people, when 23-year-old Kate first switched from dairy to oat milk in 2019, her primary concern was the environment. “I was a big oat milk girlie, for environmental reasons for the most part, but also for health,” she tells me. “I wasn’t eating meat for the environment as well.”

At the time, veganism was experiencing an unprecedented surge in popularity. While soya milk had previously been the most popular plant-based alternative, unsubstantiated rumours of health concerns surrounding its oestrogen levels began to circulate.

This, combined with the environmental cost of almond milk using up vast quantities of water, created a power vacuum for oat milk to begin its meteoric rise. Closely mirroring the froth and creaminess of cow’s milk, oat milk quickly emerged as the dairy milk alternative of choice, with sales increasing by over 100 per cent between 2019 and 2020.

“We were all [my friends] drinking oat milk back then – our uni house fridge had about six cartons at a time,” Kate says.

Almost overnight, it was impossible to step into a coffee shop without hearing “oat latte?”