A close friend of mine is responsible for producing Oatly's
'corporate sustainability plan'. He has been writing CSPs for 25years and his clients include IKEA, B&Q, and Apple to name a few.

He is one of the best in the business.
A week before submitting his plan to Oatly, my friend called me to offer a 'heads-up'. At the time another colleague and I were working on a plan, which is now sitting within Welsh Government's 'Green Recovery' ambition.

That work can be viewed here - http://www.sida-agroforestry.com 
My CSP friend tells me that Oatly would definitely be interested in supporting our work?

Our work, detailed in the previous link, is focused on developing systems that enable beef/dairy farms to reduce emissions.

Why would Oatly support "the competition"?
I spoke to Oatly's head of sustainability and she liked our work (she's an ecologist!).

She tells me that Oatly's mission is to replace cow's milk with their watery-oat drink. They have £750M in cash; and they plan to open a manufacturing facility in the UK in 2021/22....
A few days after talking to the sustainability team, I had the chance to talk to the Oatly marketing team: they drive the mission - "It’s like milk, but made for humans"

They have looked at our work and they think that they can incorporate some of the strategies into their work.
"Let's grow oats in agroforestry systems Richard, this seems like a good plan - no? Indeed there are already examples of oats being grown in agroforestry systems in Sweden.....
Five days later, Oatly send me details of their "premium" offer to farmers in the UK.

If arable farmers adopt a fairly basic set of principles to "manage wildlife" alongside growing oats then Oatly will pay them 25% above market value.

Two Welsh farmers took the bait!
I follow a lot of farmers on this platform: I enjoy their videos and updates of life with the cows and I appreciate that most are fighting for their survival - Brexit, unstable prices, net-zero, constant mental pressure, etc, etc.

Oatly - "It’s like milk, but made for humans"
A couple of days ago NFU published a document detailing an ambition to work with local authorities to achieve 'net-zero' by 2040.

Reset that ambition to 2025 and dairy farms have an opportunity to stem the Oatly onslaught. Leave it at 2040 and Oatly achieve their mission.
My colleagues and I are not trying to sell you anything. Our work has been funded from our own pockets because we believe that cattle offer greater returns to biodiversity than oats - even with the Oatly premium.
Farmers are NOT going to achieve 'net-zero' by 2040 (I'll bet my house on it!)

PLEASE re-frame that ambition as "DOWN TO ZERO"

Re-start work today - quadruple the effort - expand the ambition.

Take all the help you can get because Oatly are coming at this (you) with venom.
You can follow @stickfarmeruk.
Tip: mention @twtextapp on a Twitter thread with the keyword “unroll” to get a link to it.

Latest Threads Unrolled:

By continuing to use the site, you are consenting to the use of cookies as explained in our Cookie Policy to improve your experience.