Was it all just another marketing ploy? With its once-iconic pro-vegan slogans and graphics, the former darling of plant-based milk lovers everywhere inexplicably decided to turn on those who helped raise it up. Claire Hamlett wonders where it all went wrong.

Plant-based milk company Oatly has been busy digging holes for itself lately. Last month, it paid for an article to be published in the Guardian that seemed determined to dilute the meaning of veganism. Then, a few days ago, it doubled down on this odd strategy with an Instagram post (for which it sort-of apologised today) promoting “part-time” veganism that instantly provoked backlash from the vegan community. These missteps not only demonstrate how not to market a vegan product, but also that misconceptions persist about what veganism entails and why people practice it. 

First let’s look at the content of the Guardian article, published on January 17. In asking why we need so many labels for different diets, it tries to characterise plant-based eating as the “new normal”. The proliferation of dietary labels, such as climatarian, flexitarian etc., the piece claims, detract from this normalisation by calling attention to themselves as being different from the status quo. It argues that products labelled as ‘vegan’ get more negative attention than if the product had simply “happened to be plant-based”. But it uses the example of the Greggs vegan sausage roll, claiming that “the outrage drummed up around them was, perhaps, an expression of disdain towards a certain type of person.” Firstly, the “outrage” came almost entirely from one person - Piers Morgan - who is clearly on a personal crusade against the “certain type of person” that he perceives vegans to be. Secondly, those sausage rolls have been phenomenally popular, leading to a 13.5 per cent increase in Gregg’s sales, which rather undermines the article’s claim about the vegan label being off-putting.”. 

While it’s a good thing for plant-based eating to become more mainstream, shrinking the gaps between various kinds of diets, and while it would be great if vegan food became the default such that it didn’t really need to have a special label anymore, the article - and by extension Oatly - builds up a false argument against veganism while completely failing to grasp how veganism stands apart from other plant-based diets. 

“[T]he trouble with labels such as vegan, for example, is that it’s all or nothing,” the author writes. “You either are or you aren’t, and if you have a drop of milk in your tea then you aren’t. This level of commitment to a label can be a disincentive for us to make plant-based choices that we’d be otherwise open to.”

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Of course veganism is “all or nothing”, otherwise it’s just plant-based eating. It is also a much broader practice that excludes animal products and animal exploitation from all other areas of one’s life (as far as is possible and practicable, as per the Vegan Society definition), but the article (and, again, Oatly) fails to acknowledge this at all. The aim, it seems, is to make would-be plant-based eaters feel more comfortable, but at the expense of accuracy, Oatly’s vegan customer base, and any consideration of the animals that veganism protects.

Instead of leaving things with one ill-judged article, Oatly again pushed its confused notion of inclusiveness and threw its vegan customers under the bus in its recent Instagram post. The post featured a picture of someone in a denim jacket laden with patches proclaiming that the wearer is a “part-time” vegan and a vegan only during breakfast. The idea was to encourage people to choose a plant-based milk over dairy for their breakfast, but instead it belittles the ethical position that motivates vegans. It should be possible to encourage people to swap out some of their meat and dairy for plant-based alternatives without alienating vegans, and in fact this could easily have been achieved by Oatly using the term ‘plant-based’ instead of vegan.

Following criticism from vegans, Oatly today issued an apology of sorts in another Instagram post, saying that it is “looking to bring as many people as possible into the plant-based camp” but that it is “committed to getting it right next time” after the “failure” of its part-time vegan post. The problem with this apology is that it implies that being accurate about what veganism means is simply a gatekeeping exercise, playing into the trope of the ‘militant vegan’. And in fact it’s a very odd suggestion for Oatly to make, given that they built their brand on being vegan, even previously having used a “totally vegan” patch as well as slogans such as “post milk generation” and “eat like a vegan” as part of their marketing. Why has it turned its back on a strategy that has so far seen it grow into a multi-billion pound company? Oatly needs to remember that there simply is a difference in choosing not to participate in animal exploitation and being plant-based, which leaves the door open for consuming animal products again if one chooses to. Only then might it have a hope of “getting it right.”

Claire Hamlett is a freelance journalist, writer and regular contributor at Surge. Based in Oxford, UK, Claire tells stories that challenge systemic exploitation of and disregard for animals and the environment and that point to a better way of doing things.

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