PureOaty, the oat milk made by British business Glebe Farm Foods, has the lowest carbon footprint of all oat milks in the UK, as per a report by the brand.
Glebe Farm Foods’s PureOaty is the most sustainable oat milk in the UK, recording lower carbon emissions than all other oat milks, according to the company’s new sustainability report.
After commissioning independent consultancy firm NFU Energy to examine its oat milk’s carbon footprint from initial cultivation up to the point of distribution, Glebe Farm has reported that for each litre of PureOaty, just 0.29kg of CO2 equivalent is emitted on average, which the company claims is lower than any other oat milk currently reporting comparable figures in the UK. For example, Oatly’s carbon footprint per litre of oat milk is 0.38kg of CO2 equivalent.
Glebe Farm reported that the final emissions of its PureOaty oat milk is 288.71kg of Co2e per tonne, from cradle to production. The largest proportion comes from UHT procession and packing emissions (52%), followed by upstream emissions from packaging (21%). The remaining emissions come from operated processing (10%), transport (a total of 8%), non-oat ingredients (6%), and oat cultivation (4%).
The company has identified packaging and processing as the main areas of improvement. One of the suggestions is to look into packaging with a higher proportion of recycled material. Increasing the proportion of heat generated from biomass, increasing on-site solar generation, and installing variable speed drives onto motor-driven equipment with variable loads can all help reduce energy use emissions.
Philip Rayner, managing director of Glebe Farm, said: “As we grow and mill our own oats locally, Glebe Farm keeps food miles to an absolute minimum. What’s more, our control over the oat supply means we can make use of by-products such as the inedible oat chaff for powering production facilities. This means less waste and greater efficiency in these areas than other oat milk manufacturers could achieve.
“As farmers, we care deeply about the environmental burden of food production because we experience firsthand the changing weather patterns over the years. By growing, milling and ‘milking’ our own oats right here in the UK, Glebe Farm can offer an oat drink with lower CO2 emissions than any of its competitors.”
Glebe Farm is also in the middle of a legal battle with Oatly, which sued it for trademark infringement. The decision is expected to be made later this week.
