Trends For 2020: It’s Going To Be Oat Milk’s Biggest Year Yet

Food & Drink

First, soy milk appeared at your coffee bar. Then, coconut milk and almond milk became dairy alternatives.

Over the past couple of years, oat milk joined the group. And, now, it’s poised to break out in a big way.

Earlier this year, Starbucks added the vegan add-inn to its lineup at select Starbucks Reserve stores. (It still isn’t listed as a choice on my Starbucks app, but you can ask at a regular store if they have it.)

In November, Chobani announced that it is launching a line called Chobani Oat. It will include four varieties of oat milk — plain, extra creamy plain, chocolate and vanilla — as well as oat coffee creamers.

Chobani also has created yogurt cups in vanilla, strawberry vanilla, blueberry pomegranate and peach mandarin.

It has a number of competitors, notably Oatly, the Swedish pioneer in oat milk, as well as Silk and Planet Oat.

Oat milk comes with some challenges, however: it’s so popular that there have been oat milk shortages. And Quaker Oats has apparently dropped out of the competition.

However, one of the trendiest names in ice cream is stepping up its oat milk efforts. Van Leeuwen Ice Cream, based in Brooklyn, is adding seven new oat milk-based flavors to its vegan lineup.

They are Chocolate Oat Milk Cookie Dough Chunk, Oat Milk Brown Sugar Chunk, Brownie Sundae Raspberry Swirl, Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl, Oat Milk Mocha Latte, Oat Milk Caramel Cookie, and Strawberry.

Each is made from Van Leeuwen’s own oat milk, organic coconut cream, raw coconut oil, cocoa butter and cane syrup.

I’ve tasted several flavors, and asked some friends to weigh in. We agreed: if you can’t have dairy, or are avoiding it, and you want a frozen dessert loaded up with yummy ingredients, you might want to check this out.

With the new flavors, Van Leeuwen now sells more vegan flavors — 18 — than conventional dairy based ice cream, of which it offers 14 varieties.

The oat milk ice cream has been available in Van Leeuwen’s shops in Los Angeles and New York, and it will be available at retailers who carry the product in early 2020.

I talked to CEO Ben Van Leeuwen about the decision to sell oat milk ice cream and why oat milk has become so popular.

A push to plant-based. “We really believe in people moving to more of a plant based diet. We’re excited that we’ve ended up in this business where we make amazing dairy ice cream, but there’s another option. Oat milk is very trendy. It’s on everyone’s mind.”

An allergy advantage. “Oats are easier to grow than nuts” which provide the base for other vegan flavors at Van Leeuwen. “If you had an allergy to nuts, you couldn’t have vegan ice cream. Now, with oat, you can.”

The process. “Oat makes for such a great base. Oat has a natural starchiness that acts as a natural thickener. The way we utilize them is different from the way (oats are used) in milk. For milk, you’re going to strain and take some of the solids out, but we utilize them in ice cream.”

His research. “I can count four other oat milk brands, and I tasted all of them, and I did not think they tasted anything like ice cream.” But after tasting the Van Leeuwen recipe, “I thought, wow, this is awesome. I can make an oat milk product that tastes as good as ice cream. We have our own stores, our own distribution network, we can get it into the pipeline quickly and push out new products.”

Measuring a flavor’s success. “Do we want to eat this? We love it, do we think people will want to eat it? We’re more adventurous than our consumers. We always want to combine it with something familiar. We also think about textures as tastes. The more we can get, the better. It’s all in an effort to provide the best experience.”

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