Photo: W.carter via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Plant Milk Now in Over a Third of UK Households as Oat Keeps Growing

Kantar puts plant-based drinks in 35% of homes, while Alpro switches its bestseller to 100% British oats

June 27, 2025

More than a third of British households now buy plant-based milk, according to the latest data from Kantar, and oat milk is pulling further ahead of the pack.

Kantar data puts plant-based drinks in 35% of UK households, as Oato's commercial director Lawrence Moore pointed out in The Plant Base this week. Sales across the category are up 2.5%, and oat milk is the star of the show, up 7.5%. So much for the “oat milk backlash” some newspapers have been predicting.

Oat drinks are now worth more than £275 million in the UK, up from £155 million five years ago, according to Circana figures released by Danone. They make up 39% of all plant-based drinks sold, up from a quarter, which works out at half a million liters of oat drink every single day.

That demand is changing British farming too. In April Danone's Alpro switched its most popular oat drink to 100% British oats, processed at the Navara oat mill in Kettering from farms mostly within 80 miles. Around 58 million liters a year are planned to be made in Kettering. Jon Ruberry, plant-based category director at Danone UK & Ireland, said:

We continue to see a big appetite amongst shoppers for healthy, plant-based products, especially for 'flexitarian' shoppers looking to add variety to their diets. It is also clear that oat-based drinks are increasingly popular with consumers, a trend that is here to stay.

The mill's managing director, James Skidmore, said the switch had given oat farmers new markets to grow for:

When businesses back British agriculture, farmers have more options for their crops, leading to increased resilience and potential for growth.

Switching your milk is still the easiest healthy change you can make. It's good for the planet too. The biggest ever study of farming's footprint, led by Oxford University, found that meat and dairy use 83% of farmland while providing just 18% of our calories. Every carton of oat milk is one less demand on that.

The dairy aisle has been shrinking for years. Back in 2017 a 90-year-old New York dairy switched to plant milk, a London cafe completely ditched dairy and we reported that plant-based milks were surging. Since then Oprah and Jay-Z invested in Oatly and Starbucks put oat milk in every US store.

The cows can relax. The future is looking brighter.