Why Are There Few Organic Oat Milks?

Sisters Christina Dorr Drake and Elena Dorr Zienda grew up drinking homemade oat milk that their grandmother Willa created. As adults, when they couldn’t find an oat milk that measured up to one of their childhoods, they decided to make their own based on Willa’s 74-year-old recipe. 

In the past few years, oat milk has become the plant-based alternative of choice in lattes for its creamy, legitimately tasty texture. People bake with it, cook with it and have bought it in such large quantities that it’s now the second-most popular plant-based milk on the market.  

Yet, oat milk isn’t anything new. Home cooks like Drake and Zienda’s grandmother have made it for decades, as have brands like Pacific Foods and even Oatly, which launched in the U.S. in 2016, has been around for decades in Sweden. Yet, even as the popularity of oat milk and the number of brands selling it has grown, few oat milks on the market are certified organic.

“Being organic was super critical for us,” said Drake of Willa’s, which is USDA certified organic. “We want to do good for people and the ecosystem, so it was a no-brainer for us to be organic certified especially as we dug into the data surrounding oats and glyphosate.”

 While there’s been plenty of debate over whether organic food is safer for you, studies show that eating an organic diet reduces exposure to some pesticides. And organic food sales have steadily risen in the U.S. over the past decade, reaching $55 billion in 2019, up 5 percent from 2018, according to the Organic Trade Association (OTA). 

 While interest and demand for organic foods are growing, the amount of organic grains, including corn, soybeans, wheat, and oats, hasn’t kept pace, barely growing from 626,000 acres to 765,000 acres between 2008 and 2016, according to the OTA. A 2018 EWG study found the chemical glyphosate in many popular oat-based foods. Still, while many oat milks aren’t certified organic, some, including Willa’s, Pacific Foods and Rise Brewing Co. are, and others like Oatly do third-party testing to guarantee their oat milk is glyphosate-free.

Willa’s, which launched last spring, was initially focused on the coffee shop market but, due to the pandemic, was able to quickly adjust to focus on Amazon sales.

“We were just as excited to launch for consumers,” Drake said. 

When developing their oat milk, it wasn’t the organic certification that was the most difficult for them, but using a milling process that results in zero food waste. The company utilizes the entire oat, compared to many other oat milks that use the oat’s carbohydrates rather than the whole grain oat. 

“We use a milling process that is unique to us, at least to my knowledge,” Drake said. “It allows us to use the entire oat so you’re getting all of the protein and fiber and no waste. That was one of the more challenging parts, being able to develop the recipe to scale and use the entire oat.”

The result is an oat milk that contains more fiber and protein and less sugar per serving than many other oat milk varieties. It also gives Willa’s a nutty, creamy flavor. And while it remains to be seen if oat milk drinkers will begin to gravitate towards more organic oat milk, Drake and Zienda remained committed to creating products that are good for people and the planet.

“Everything we do starts with our values around health and the environment,” said Drake.