The Times Magazine 15he single bestselling item in any
supermarket in Britain is a four-
pinter bottle of semi-skimmed
milk. It beats bananas, bread or loo
rolls. We consume 4 billion litres
of the white stuff every year, with
it ending up in countless daily cups
of tea and bowls of cereal.
But the dominance of dairy
milk – once considered such
a staple it was given out by the state to
schoolchildren – is under serious threat
from the most unlikely of drinks: oat milk.
Almost unheard of a decade ago, oat
milk has become one of the fastest-selling
consumer products not just in Britain, but in
America and parts of Europe too, embraced
by millions of young millennials – and their
even younger siblings – convinced the liquid is
better for their health and for the planet. And
it is almost entirely down to one man: Toni
Petersson, a former restaurateur, nightclub
owner and one-time pop singer who has a
missionary zeal that he and his company,
Oatly, have not just come up with a great
product but are making the world a better
place. “We make oat milk, no doubt. But why
we go to work is to ignite a positive, societal
shift,” he says with an almost unnerving
earnestness. “The world needs companies like
us,” he tells me. Why? “Because we’re making
impossible things happen.”
At times he sounds more like a televangelist
than a chief executive. “That’s the beautiful
thing about what we do. The more we sell, the
better it is for planet and people. I know that
sounds really awkward, but it’s actually true.
It’s factual.”
We’re chatting in his office at Oatly’s HQ
in Malmö, Sweden, which has no desk but a
large gold cow’s head attached to the wall like
a hunting trophy, low chairs and a squishy
sofa, on which Petersson sits, managing
somehow to look dignified despite being just
inches off the floor and wearing Lululemon
joggers. “I can’t wear a suit,” he says. “Look- it’s not me.”
You may not have heard of the brand,
but your children will have done. If Greta
Thunberg is the Swede who has garnered
all the headlines complaining not enough
is being done on climate change, Petersson
argues he’s the Swede with the solution.
“I think there are different parts to making
the world a better place. You have to drive
the thought process of changing stuff but
you also have to provide the actual
mechanism, right?” Oat milk is that
mechanism, he argues.
He only moved into his latest office in
March, but the company is already building
a larger headquarters across the road – big
enough to house 350 staff, a “not milk bar”
and a rooftop orangery. It is on the site
of a former shipbuilding yard, once Malmö’s
largest employer. I get shown around the
vast former temple to heavy industry and
spot a flipboard that has buzzwords that
inspired the new office: “transparent”, “daring”,
“empowered”, “sustainability”, “inspiring”,
“oat-some” and “future”.
It is easy to think that Petersson is in
charge of some cult, with his face appearing
on cartons of Oatly with the slogan “I love
my products”. Half-Japanese, with thick, dark
hair and the physique of someone younger
than 53, he is undeniably handsome. Before
I meet him, I get shown around by an Oatly
employee, who used to be his personal
assistant. I ask her what he’s like. “Toni’s
pretty intense,” is her accurate answer.
He has described environmentalism
as “a belief system almost like a religion”.
What does that make oat milk? A Gen-Z
communion wine? “We’re part of one of
humanity’s greatest challenges, which is
to feed a growing population over time
within the planetary boundaries. You know,
it’s not a small thing.”
If it is a cult, it is becoming a
staggeringly successful one. Back in
2018, Oatly’s annual turnover was
$118 million; its turnover over the
past 12 months was $528 million
(£392 million). Three years ago it made
84 million litres of oat milk; this year
it hopes to make 600 million and for
that to increase to 1.47 billion in
2023, with plans to double theT
HE SOUNDS MORE LIKE A TELEVANGELIST THAN A
CEO. ‘WE’RE MAKING IMPOSSIBLE THINGS HAPPEN’
Oatly ad campaign ahead
of the London Coffee
Festival, 2019. Below:
pop-up coffee van at the
Cop26 summit in GlasgowOatly celebrity investors Jay-Z,
SOBHAN SHEIKH, GETTY IMAGES Natalie Portman and Oprah Winfrey