OATLY Coffee Master Oat Milk develops Oat Milk Why should OATLY own more than 10, 000 cafes

On March 9, OATLY, the world's largest Swedish oatmeal brand, released the latest news: plans to build a new factory!

According to the official website of oatmeal brand OATLY, the first factory will be built in the UK.

The new plant, which is expected to open in the first quarter of 2023, will become "one of the largest plant-based dairy factories in the world", with an annual production capacity of 300m litres of oatmeal and an annual output of 450 million litres, according to snack Dai.

In addition, the factory will purchase oats in the UK and the products will be supplied to the UK market.

Ishen Paran, general manager of OATLY UK, said: "the demand for OATLY products in the UK market is growing and we are pleased to be able to meet this demand."

This is not the first time oatmeal brand OATLY has proposed to build a factory.

As early as 2019, OATLY has announced plans to build a number of plants, including the Netherlands, the United States and Singapore.

Among them, the Singapore plant is expected to be completed this year, if not unexpected, this will be OATLY's first Asian plant in Asia, so far, OATLY has not disclosed the details of the Singapore plant and Chinese capacity.

If OATLY can provide supply and demand in the Chinese market in the future after the completion of the plant in Singapore, from the price level, this supply and demand will help the oat beverage brand OATLY to reduce costs, thus enhancing the competitive advantage of oat milk prices.

In addition, a week ago, foreign media reported that the "online celebrity" brand OATLY was about to go public.

On the 23rd of last month, OATLY submitted a confidential document to the US Securities Regulatory Commission (SEC) for an initial public offering (IPO). OATLY said: IPO is expected to take place after SEC reviews the data, but the timing depends on market conditions. (portal: oatmeal milk from tens of thousands of cafes will also be on the market! )

In July last year, OATLY also completed a financing of $200m, with a valuation of about $2 billion. After the announcement of the financing news, many people in the industry said that OATLY's move may be in preparation for a listing or acquisition. At the time, BBC also reported that the financing would be used for OATLY to expand its current major markets, such as Europe, the United States and Asia.

Looking at this, some people may wonder how OATLY has become the world's largest oatmeal brand. Or how did you cut into the coffee market and have more than 10,000 cafes?

This still has to start from the development of OATLY.

OATLY was founded in 1994 and has a history of more than 20 years this year, but although it has been established for a long time, the brand has only entered the public's eye in recent years. From its establishment to 2012 / 2013, OATLY is mainly in the traditional form and concentrated in Sweden and Europe, and the OATLY brand did not begin to reshape its brand business until 2013-2014.

Comparison between the packaging of OATLY products in 2012 / 2013 and the repackaged ones

In 2015, because OATLY CEO Toni was also a coffee insider and ran a coffee shop, this experience once again had an impact on shaping the company's business. The management of the OATLY brand shifted from the original retail channel to the coffee market channel. The brand also made good use of this channel to cut into new markets. In terms of the American coffee market at that time, the boutique coffee market was already very mature. The business of OATLY has developed rapidly.

After entering the US market in 2016, OATLY was loved by the US plant milk market. In 2018, OATLY began to plan to build an oatmeal milk factory in the United States. Under the background that China Resources invested in OATLY's Swedish parent company at the end of 2016, the brand entered the Chinese market in the first half of 2018 and entered China Resources's Pacific Coffee, Ole supermarket and other channels, but at the beginning, due to the lack of product positioning, OATLY in Ole' The sales method of the boutique supermarket did not reach the market smoothly until OATLY chose to cut into the boutique cafe. Relevant data show that there were about 400 to 500 Pacific Coffee in China at that time, and OATLY entered 300 of them. At the same time, more than 100 stores also entered the Hong Kong region.

It is worth mentioning that, like entering the American market, OATLY after entering the Chinese coffee market has also been praised by the market, and its product promotion is still expanded in the direction of coffee. The difference is that after entering the Chinese market, the coffee culture in the Chinese market is not as strong as that in the American market. OATLY's strategy for this situation is that the main market is concentrated in Shanghai in the first year. The data presented later also show that this is a good strategy. We also mentioned in the article last week that OATLY was favored by many investors after it officially entered the Chinese market in early 2018. The data show that OATLY's revenue increased tenfold from 2017 to 2018, and by 2019, OATLY's revenue was about $200 million.

Until now, the brand's main product line is oatmeal milk as the main product, to expand the coffee market, of course, OATLY is also constantly expanding the product form and scene, such as oat-based cream, oat yogurt, oat ice cream and other products, while "stand out" from the cafe scene-work with industry colleagues to create plant protein categories and promote category growth At present, OATLY has entered more than 20 countries around the world, has three factories, and has settled in tens of thousands of cafes across the country.

Zhang Chun, president of OATLY Asia, predicts that total sales in Asia will reach nearly 100 million bottles in 2021, while China has become one of the most important growth markets for OATLY in the world. In addition to setting up its first factory in the UK, OATLY will also step up efforts to develop the C-end market.

* Image source: Internet