Oat milk is everywhere. Why is it still so expensive?
O ver the past decade, non-dairy milks have soared in popularity. Part of this is because of concerns about the climate crisis: the dairy industry is uniquely bad for the environment in part because of the amount of methane cattle produce. But many have also switched to non-dairy citing concerns about cruelty to animals, an exploration of veganism, an increasing awareness of lactose intolerance, concerns about fat and sugar and even worries about good skin.
There are lots of ways plant milks are preferable to dairy but in one respect they’re definitely not: on average, plant milks now cost twice as much as good, old-fashioned cow’s milk, which has been building strong teeth and bones and warding off osteoporosis for thousands of years, and the cost difference is making some consumers reconsider.
“I have an Aldi and Lidl by me,” says Su-Jit Lin, a food writer in Atlanta, “and that milk can go as low as $1.25 for a half-gallon. So why not get a half-gallon of dairy milk when almond milks are $3 and change?”
Bon Appétit found that the cheapest whole dairy milk at supermarkets was two cents an ounce at Walmart, while almond milk cost four cents and oat six cents.
It’s enough to give some plant milk drinkers, including Lin, pause.
But why are plant milks so expensive when they’re really nothing more than a handful of oats, almonds or soybeans pulverized in a blender with some water? As another astute Twitter user points out, surely it doesn’t cost nearly as much to raise an oat as it does a cow.
To see if there were some hidden costs I was somehow missing, I made my own oat milk. The recipe I used called for a cup of oats (approximate value: 38 cents), a pinch of salt (infinitesimal), eight cups of water (free), and a blender and
Read more on theguardian.com
