These days, a trip to the grocery store to pick up milk can be a daunting task. Not only are there new spins on traditional cow’s milk — ultra-filtered? grass-fed? — but there’s also a dizzying array of alternatives made from soy, rice, coconuts, almonds, cashews, hemp and even peas.
Now, Quaker Oats is muscling its way into the aisle with a version based on the grain that made it famous.
In January, the company plans to bring Quaker Oat Beverage — not “milk,” perhaps because of the debate over whether the word is appropriate for nondairy drinks — to the mass market. It will use the distribution might of its parent company, PepsiCo, in hopes of claiming a big piece of a fast-growing sector.
[Read our article about the dispute over what qualifies as milk.]
The beverage, to be introduced this weekend at a food industry trade show in Washington, is part of PepsiCo’s push to expand its portfolio beyond sugary sodas and salty snacks to healthier options.
Milk alternatives were originally geared toward people unable to stomach cow’s milk because they were lactose intolerant. But as vegans and other buyers embraced the plant-based choices, sales in the United States rose to more than $2 billion last year, up 61 percent from five years earlier, according to the research firm Mintel.
Oat milk, while gaining popularity in parts of Europe, has been mostly a trendy, fringe product in the United States. Quaker is betting it can be more than that.
For more read the full of article at The Nytimes
