Seeking to satisfy the growing demand for alternative milk, New Zealand beverage manufacturer Free Flow is to open the country’s first dedicated oat milk production facility this year.
The plant will expand the company’s existing manufacturing footprint with an additional 2500sqm of production, and 4000sqm of warehousing, with the capacity to produce 50 million litres of oat milk each year.
And in a world-first – developed with German machine manufacturer Krones and brewing technology expert Keones – the same machinery used to produce plant-based milk can also be used to process beer.
Scott Day, co-founder of Free Flow Manufacturing, shared that the demand for alt-milk has “skyrocketed” in recent years, outpacing traditional dairy, with no signs of slowing down.
“Grocery spending on plant-based milk in New Zealand increased by 44 per cent from 2019 to the end of 2022, with sales jumping from $61 million to $88 million,” explained Day.
Despite this, he explains, New Zealand has had to rely on imported products to meet demand.
“The launch of our new plant-based milk facility in East Auckland is an important milestone for the sector, enabling it to reduce its carbon footprint, improve innovation and produce premium products locally for health-conscious consumers worldwide,” he added.
Free Flow also partnered with plant-based milk brand Otis, allowing the South Island company to relocate the manufacturing of its oat milk from Sweden to New Zealand.
Otis co-founders Tim Ryan and Chris Wilkie launched their first oat milk product in 2018.
“As we scaled up our production, we weren’t prepared to compromise on quality, and because of this, we had to ship our New Zealand oats to Sweden for manufacture due to the lack of a local partner that has the technology required to produce premium oat milk to the gold-standard we demand,” they said.
“We’re thrilled to have finally cracked this with Free Flow and truly believe that New Zealand will be a force to be reckoned with when it comes to producing dairy and non-dairy milk.”
Further reading: Inside oat-milk brand Oatly’s totally ‘Norm&al’ approach to marketing.
