My personal transition from omnivore to vegan/ vegetarian is proceeding almost as slowly as my transition away from driving a diesel to an electric vehicle. One positive change, is that we purchase our eggs and milk (and some honey as well as produce) from neighbouring farms, rather than grocery stores.
I asked my personal shopper to add some Oatly products onto her shopping list. Instead, she invited me to help her shop at the local Co-operative in Straumen. Thus, I was able to purchase one litre (about a quart) of havredrikk kalsium (oatmilk calcium). Unfortunately, I was unable to find the other products I wanted to try: havregurt vanilje (oatgurt vanilla); havregurt turkisk (oatgurt Turkish) and iMat fraiche (Oat creme fraiche).
Oatly is a Swedish vegan food brand, producing dairy alternatives from oats. Based on research at Lund University. The company’s enzyme technology turns oats into a nutritional liquid food suitable for the human digestive system. The company operates in southern Sweden with its headquarters in Malmö, with a production & development centre in Landskrona. The brand is available in more than 20 Asian and European countries, Australia, Canada and USA.
Oatly also tries to be sustainable, by reducing its contributions to global warming. They also produce a sustainability report. It shows that almost half of Oatly’s contribution to greenhouse gasses comes from the cultivation of ingredients, a quarter from transport, 15% from packaging and 6% from production (p. 26).
Oatly is not perfect. For example, there has been some controversy about it selling oat residue to a pig farm. On the other hand, it has benefited from two publicity attacks. First, Arla, the Swedish dairy company, attempted to discourage people from buying vegan alternatives to cow’s milk (mjölk in Swedish) using a fake brand Pjölk. Oatly responded by trademarking several fictitious brands Pjölk, Brölk, Sölk and Trölk and began using them on their packaging. Second, the Swedish dairy lobby LRF Mjölk, won a lawsuit against Oatly for using the phrase “Milk, but made for humans” for £ (sic) 100 000. When Oatly published the lawsuit text, it lead to a 45% increase in Oatly’s Swedish sales. Once again, this seems to suggest that there is no such thing as bad publicity.
On 2020-05-14, Oatly and Einride announced that Oatly will use four 42-tonne vehicles starting 2020-10 to transport goods from production sites in southern Sweden, using Einride’s Freight Mobility Platform. This is estimated to lower its climate footprint (on the affected routes) by 87% compared to diesel trucks: 107.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year per truck, about 430 tonnes per year in total, or 2 100 tonnes throughout the five year duration of the contract.
Part of the solution involves optimizing electric trucks operations using computer-controlled logistics with Einride’s Freight Mobility Platform software. Accurate transport planning allows 24 tonnes of goods to be transported an average of 120 kilometers without charging. It involves optimizing and coordinating drivers, vehicles, routes as well as charging. On a typical shift, three drivers will drive four different trucks. This means that one truck is always charging, which places less strain on batteries, and making the operation more durable and economical.
This initial iteration involves a DAF glider (a vehicle without a driveline/ prime mover/ power source, fitted with a Emoss motor. Future iterations may involve a Einride Pod, previously referred to as a T-pod.
Som bosatt i Sverige har jeg lett og billig tilgang til alle Oatly-produkter, og jeg liker dem. De kan sikkert ta inn flere om du spør etter dem i butikken. Da jeg bodde i Norge laget jeg mye av plantemelken jeg brukte selv (havre eller mandel i hovedsak), men siden det er så billig her, så blir det til at jeg kjøper. Kartongene blir brukt som plantekrukker til tomater i en viss fase av veksten, eller resirkulert direkte. Når man ser på Co2 regnskapet så er noe av det viktigste for meg at mye av foret for å produsere kumelk er kraftfor, deriblant palmeolje fra regnskogen – fraktet fra Brasil. Og så det altoverskyggende – dyrevelferd.
This is how Google translated the comment from Vigdis, with a little help from Brock:
As a resident of Sweden, I have easy and cheap access to all Oatly products, and I like them. They can certainly bring in more if you ask for them in the store. When I lived in Norway I made a lot of the plant milk I used myself (oats or almonds mainly), but since it is so cheap here, I buy it. The boxes are used as plant pots for tomatoes during their growth phase, or directly recycled. When looking at the CO2 accounts, one of the most important things to me is that much of the feed for producing cow’s milk feed concentrates, including palm oil from the rainforest – shipped from Brazil. And then the overriding thing – animal welfare.