Oatly

We really think you should read the full letter from us and Patagonia, but most of all we think you should know this: The outcome of the EU election is super important for the future of our planet, and you are super important for the outcome of the election. Go vote! 

Goshdarnit! Being recognized with an honorable mention in Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas Awards for our work with Product Climate Footprint labeling right after being included in Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies List for being the first company to put climate labeling on our packages, makes it almost impossible to casually mention that we now have a product climate footprint declaration on 196 of our products globally, without sounding a bit braggy.

We created a venue called Designed for Humans featuring "The Fountain of Youth" but of course those names are purely coincidental and have nothing to do with oat drink. If you happen to be in Milan for the design week in the next few days, the guided tour is only 8€. The oat latte is free though.

When we invented oat drink we wanted to create a drink that almost everyone could use instead of milk from a cow. Although most agreed this was a genius move, people in the US quickly became discerning oat drink connoisseurs. They asked if we could make more versions of the original light blue oat drink that could come in different color-coded packages, to respond to different people's tastes. Like maybe an unsweetened one with zero sugar, or a really super basic one with only four ingredients (water, oats, salt & citrus zest fiber), or one with more fat or perhaps less fat and a chocolate version and also more cats in our socials, and we were like, "wow hold your horses demanding consumers! You had us at color-coded packaging.”

More people are likely to think that the Royal Family are extra-terrestrial reptiles than think vegan cheese contains ingredients derived from a cow.* Still, the Food Standards and Information Focus Group (FSIFG) has recommended banning dairy-free producers from using words and expressions like "Alternative to cheese", "dairy free yogurt" or "not-milk" on their packaging. They even suggested what to call things in the future! Instead of vegan mozzarella, they propose the mouthwatering and totally non-vulgar "Vegan soft white balls with a mild cheese flavour." We hope we'll never have to learn what they want to call custard. (*independent polling conducted by OnePoll of 2,000 UK adults in February 2024)

We've been told that brands are only accepted to do murals in Paris if they are "artfully" done and without any products or logos on the wall. In the event someone should doubt the artfulness of what we did, we paid a person with a master's degree in Art History to interpret it for us: "By combining the Dadaist readymade and the Pop-art fondness for commercial objects, with modern day graffiti and moving sculptures, and then going full circle by borrowing the Neo-conceptualist use of text but turning it into an ad, the creators have managed to turn almost all the movements spawned by late modernism into a sacrilegious joke to sell oat drink. It can only be described as a form of art, I guess." See, we're artists now.

Can an inspirational cliché written in cursive reverse The Dutch Government’s decision to increase taxes on plant-based alternatives to milk? Probably not. But it’s worth a try…Last week, the nearly 200% increase in the “Lemonade Tax” was voted in despite the efforts of Misty E. Mason and 40 000 other citizens plus ProVeg Nederland, Alpro, NGOs, The IkLobby and yours truly, who signed and supported her petition to stop it. Now, if you’re more than slightly confused why plant-based alternatives to milk are considered “lemonade” and subject to the tax, whilst cow’s milk isn’t, well, join the club… And if that confusion now has you questioning the logic of taxing products with a generally lower climate impact than milk, well, you can join that club too… And, as a valued club member, you should also know that despite this setback we will continue asking these questions and fighting to level the playing field for plant-based dairy alternatives. So to all policy makers out there, we’ll talk soon, yeah?

Last Thursday, we maybe hosted the world’s largest conversation about climate footprint labelling on a Reddit AMA and invited Big Dairy Execs to co-host, but none showed up? Don’t worry Dairy Execs! You can still share your numbers with our FREE media offer! Apply at oatly.com/dairydeal. And for those of you who don’t do Reddit, no worries either! Here’s a handy audio version of the entire 1000 comment thread that should be three and a half hours long, but LinkedIn only lets us have thirty minutes so enjoy the thirty minutes! Or, maybe by now you’ve read this far and you’re wondering what a Reddit AMA thread looks like and you like long clickable links, click this long clickable link to the Reddit AMA thread: https://lnkd.in/eVvyXDsM.

Don’t thank us for this, thank concerned Dutch person Misty Mason. She started a petition on behalf of plant-based drink lovers to make plant-based drinks exempt from an increase in the “lemonade tax” in the Netherlands. If you are confused why plant-based alternatives to milk are considered “lemonade” and therefore subject to the tax, but cow’s milk isn’t, well, so are we. Anyway, we’re supporting her petition so people aren’t penalized for choosing an alternative that has a generally lower climate impact compared to cow’s milk. Sign the petition today, or tomorrow, but preferably today, but if you’re too busy today, do it tomorrow! Please! https://lnkd.in/eXqWpnhH

Hi people of LinkedIn, we are hosting a Reddit AMA on climate footprint labels and are calling out for a Big Dairy exec to co-host. Is that you? Do you know any? We put our numbers on our packaging…why don’t they? Join us on 19/10 from 2pm GMT / 3pm CET. Hope a dairy exec shows up... To go to the AMA, check out https://lnkd.in/epZskxhA