Oatly oat milk is popular all over the world
Oatly oat milk is not a mixture of oats and milk. It is make by oats and water. In terms of raw materials, it is more similar to the familiar soy milk. Oat milk is a plant milk, a type of plant protein beverage . In addition to oats, beans, nuts or coconuts can also be made into plant milk.
Recent years, oat milk has been the dark horse in the beverage market. In developed countries in Europe and the United States, oat milk has become the third most important protein drink after milk and soy milk. According to the “2020 Plant Protein Beverage Innovation Trends” released by Tmall, the sales growth rate of plant protein beverages including oat milk in 2020 far exceeded that of other beverage categories, with a sales growth rate of more than 900%.
Oat milk is classified as plant protein beverage/plant milk/plant yogurt (hereinafter referred to as plant milk) on the Alibaba platform. As a traditional consumer field, the plant milk market has a huge market and presents a phenomenon of a hundred schools of thought: on the one hand, there are already big players in the subdivided categories, such as Lulu Almond Milk, Coco Tree Coconut Juice, Yangyuan Six Walnuts, Vitasoy, etc.; on the other hand, traditional food and beverage giants have successively incubated new brands to share the market, such as Yili launched Zhixuan and Nongfu Spring launched plant yogurt.
2021 Plant Milk Category Ranking
User said that we collected market data on plant protein beverages/plant milk/plant yogurt categories on Taobao and Tmall from April 2020 to March 2021, and compiled the 2021 plant milk category rankings. The data comes from the protein beverage/plant milk/plant yogurt category.
The first place is Six Walnuts, the pioneer of Chinese walnut milk beverages, with a market share of 15.35%. OATLY, an oat plant protein brand from Sweden, ranks second, with a total annual turnover of 89 million. Vitasoy ranks fourth in this list. In addition to its classic soy milk product, it has also developed oat beverages, brown rice beverages and other plant milk products. The top five brands on the list account for a total market share of 59.21%.
There are 13 domestic brands on the list, covering soy milk, almond milk, coconut milk, peanut milk, nut milk and other categories. Traditional plant protein drinks still occupy a large market share. Yili, the leading domestic dairy company, has also launched soy milk and oat milk products, with a market share of less than 2%. Lidashi and Vamino are soy milk brands from Thailand. Austrian brand Joya, Korean brand Maeil/Daily, American brand Califia Farms and Spanish brand Vivesoy have all developed a variety of plant milk products such as oat milk, soy milk, almond milk, etc.
Swedish brand OATLY
The Swedish brand OATLY is the absolute darling of the current oat milk market. From January to April 2020, OATLY’s sales on Tmall (Chinese online marketplace) and Taobao (Chinese online marketplace) increased by 115.4% and 2305.7% year-on-year respectively. On April 19, 2021, OATLY announced that it had submit a prospectus to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, intending to raise $100 million to be listed on the Nasdaq .
The brand uses a unique handwritten brand name logo and a solid-color base packaging box with eye-catching slogans on the side to output its own values. Later, it specially commissioned an environmental protection journal to publish a research article, pointing out that the production process of oat milk is more environmentally friendly than milk, awakening consumers’ “anti-milk” awareness, and using “environmental protection” and “low calories” as selling points to penetrate into groups such as lactose intolerant groups and vegetarians.
Another strategy of OATLY is to cooperate with coffee shops to establish the advantage of coffee chain channels. Professional baristas have found that oat milk has good foaming properties, high thermal stability, few artificial additives, and a low-key taste, which can set off the aroma of coffee. As of the end of last year, OATLY has entered more than 8,000 terminal stores across the country and has reached cooperation with coffee and tea brands such as Manner, Tim Hortons, Peet’s, Costa, and Heytea. Starbucks has also officially included Oatly oat milk in its menu in March this year.
OATLY Coffee
The 17th-ranked domestic brand oatoat also focuses on oat milk. Oatoat is a newly established plant protein beverage brand in May 2020. Since its launch, the brand has completed three rounds of financing. Its brand slogan is “Only make ingredient lists that you can understand”, and the ingredient list only contains water, oats, vegetable oil and edible salt. Oatoat was launched on Tmall in September 2020. Two months later, it achieved the goal of being the number one in domestic oat milk sales on Double Eleven, and completed sales of nearly two million in March 2021.
At the same time, oatoat attaches great importance to offline channels. Within 5 months of its launch, it completed the laying of 8,000 channels including FamilyMart, Convenience Bee , Hongqi Chain, and Dole’s Day. The brand also held breakfast day activities at FamilyMart convenience stores, and carried out in-depth channel operations to fit the product characteristics.
User Summary
Compared with milk, the advantage of plant milk is that it has lower fat and no cholesterol, which is more in line with the current definition of a healthy diet. At the same time, based on the different raw materials, plant milk is also popular among people who are allergic to milk protein, lactose intolerant, and vegetarians. Even because the production process of plant milk may produce less carbon emissions and consume less energy, environmentalists also highly recommend plant milk. In a sense, plant milk is no longer just a drink, but also represents a healthy and sustainable lifestyle.
In addition to Oatoat, new domestic oat milk brands such as Wheat Oye, Daily Box and Omai Planet are also beginning to rise. Compared with Oatly, whose manufacturer is overseas, domestic oat milk brands have obvious price advantages. With the emergence of more and more affordable alternatives, it remains unknown whether Oatly can continue to hold the throne of the leading oat milk brand.
Many people have had the habit of drinking soy milk since ancient times, and soy milk, almond milk, and coconut milk have also become household drinks. Nowadays, oat milk has become popular with the global trend of plant-based products. To break out of the originally blank market, it is still necessary to strengthen category awareness and increase users’ recognition of oat milk, so as to further expand the market and enable consumers’ huge consumption habits of plant milk to be upgraded in the future. In such a diverse range of competitive categories and such a fierce competitive environment, where can oat milk go and how far can it go? The test has just begun.
