“In the past, when people were talking about climate change or sustainability, it was in a doom and gloom, in a punitive, in a very negative . . . way. And people got fed up with that,” said Jean-Christophe Flatin, chief executive of the oat drink maker, Oatly, this week.
Flatin also highlighted consumer indifference on environmental issues in the US: generally “there has been too much greenwashing”, he said, according to the FT’s report of this week’s trading update from the company.
Sales of plant-based milks have fallen away in the US after a period of impressive growth. Dairy milk sales have risen slightly of late, in no small part thanks to the popularity of protein.
Oatly, however, sees fibre as the best opportunity for improving growth. ‘Fibremaxxing’ spiked on TikTok this summer as gut health attracts attention from consumers worldwide.
Positive perception for high-fibre foods stands at 82% in the US, for example, ahead of superfoods (72%) and probiotic foods (67%), according to NielsenIQ research in July. Innova research shows 39% of European consumers were ‘very or extremely interested’ in fibre, compared to 24% who said the same for probiotics.
“The UK does not have issues with protein deficiency at a population level,” noted The Food Foundation in its recent ‘Meat Facts’ report, citing data from the British Nutrition Foundation showing UK adults on average eat 50% more protein than is recommended by dietary guidelines.
However, the government’s latest update to the national diet and nutrition survey showed just 4% of adults and 4% of 11-18 year olds met the target to consume at least 30g and 25g per day respectively of fibre. As Footprint reported last month, this statistic should worry us all: not only is fibre good for digestion and gut health,it has also been linked to lower risk of serious health conditions like heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and colorectal cancer.
Celebrity chefs are getting behind fibre fever too. “The average Brit is majorly deficient in fibre every day,” said Jamie Oliver in a recent interview with The Times in which he described the country’s protein obsession as “bonkers.”
Daniel Ordonez, Oatly’s chief operating officer and global president, said this is the opportunity: “If you just follow the trends in the US right now, you would be discussing ‘how much protein can we chuck into our oat milk?’ [But] there is a total surplus of protein in the world’s population, especially in the developed population. What the world has . . . is a big, big deficit for fibre,” he explained.
