A lawsuit against an oat-based ‘milk’ producer, filed by a dairy conglomerate, has resulted in sales-boosting publicity for the brand concerned. 

In October 2014, the Swedish dairy conglomerate LRF Mjölk filed a lawsuit against oat based-‘milk’ producer Oatly for marketing tactics which lambast milk. 

Oatly’s slogans include “designed for humans”, “Wow no cow!” and “No milk. No soy. No badness.” 

Its website states: “The idea behind Oatly was to find a way to make a nutritious alternative to milk without going through the body of a cow. Today that sounds really smart. But back when we started in the early 1990’s most people though we were crazy. That’s okay, everything has is time. Who is the crazy one now?”

LRF Mjölk, whose combined sales are 200 times greater than those of Oatly, claimed that this negative marketing information gave milk a bad name. 

What has now emerged, with some irony, is a boost in Oatly’s sales thanks to the publicity the legal case attracted. Oatly’s CEO, Toni Petersson, notes that the controversy has made people more aware and supportive of its products, which has increased their European and Asian sales by 37%, and by 45% in Sweden. All of which is going to provide Oatly with a $41 million profit in 2015.

Oatly is now pushing post-milk as a cultural and lifestyle phenomenon, with an online store selling T-shirts with messages such as “We are the post-milk generation”.