Plant-based milk factory has opened in New Zealand

About half a million litres of oat milk produced from South Island oats are rolling off a new production line in East Auckland this month — and Otis, the owner of New Zealand’s oat milk brand, couldn’t be more thrilled.

“It’s taken us nearly five years to establish a first-of-its-kind, purpose-built New Zealand factory with the technology required to produce premium oat milks to the gold standard we make our oat milk,” said Tim Ryan, co-founder of Otis.

Ryan said the facility’s build is the culmination of an 18-month project collaborating with the best available New Zealand, German and Swedish food technology to create a world-class production facility for plant-based milk.

Owned by beverage manufacturer Free-flow Manufacturing, the facility uses enzyme technology developed by Sweden’s Angie Triantafyllou, known as the ‘godmother of modern oat milk’. The ex-Oatly founder is now Chairperson of the board at Swedish plant-based technology company Cerealiq.

Claimed to be New Zealand’s first oat milk producer, Otis was launched in Canterbury in 2018.

As the business scaled up production, Ryan and co-founder Chris Wilkie worked with Cerealiq’s patented enzyme technology for its oat milk. The New Zealanders made a tough decision to safeguard the premium recipe by exporting New Zealand oats for manufacturing in Sweden.

Ryan and co-founder Chris Wilkie have been on a mission to return to making their oat milk in New Zealand.

Wilkie said, “It’s exciting that the technology is available in New Zealand for the first time, enabling Otis to produce the freshest, highest-quality, nutritious and delicious oat milk in our homeland.

“This new facility will produce our oat milk recipe to the world-class standard levels of beta-glucan, the nutritional gold ingredient found in Otis oat milk. Beta-glucan helps the body to maintain stable cholesterol levels and a healthy gut.”

Otis works closely with the New Zealand Oat Industry Group. The Group includes Plant Research, Harraways Mill and around 70 arable farmers using oat varieties that were optimised and developed over 20 years for the southern growing region, to help ensure New Zealand-grown oats remain nutritionally superior to other varieties in the world.

The opening is also a leap for the New Zealand plant-based beverage industry. The technology and expertise housed within this plant helps to advance New Zealand’s position as a leader in sustainable food innovation.

The business’s return to New Zealand comes at a time of consistent growth in the plant-based milk sector. More Kiwis are drinking oat milk than last year with the beverage making up 41% of plant-based milk sales in New Zealand, compared to almond milk at 27.3% (-0.3%), soy milk 23% (-1%) and coconut milk at 5% (+0.3%)¹.

Otis’ new 100% homegrown oat milk will be on supermarket shelves nationwide from 1 July, available in 1 L cartons in new and refreshed packaging.

A video of the new facility

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