Julie Kunen, Co-Lead Global Sustainability and Senior Director of Regenerative Agriculture Director, discusses what is next for Oatly and the sustainability successes and targets for 2030 on this episode of The Plantbased Business Hour with Elysabeth Alfano.
Specifically, we discussed
- How long have you been with Oatly?
- While Oatly has been focused on sustainability for a while, is regenerative agriculture specifically a new target?
- For a while, Oatly was promoting its carbon footprint on the carton. Did this resonate with consumers?
- Sustainability since even before the new administration has been an issue on the decline for consumers. Has this been the case for Oatly?
- Oatly is probably most known for its unique advertising targeted at younger generations. Is your main demographic 40 and below and do they put their buying power behind sustainability?
- How important is your relationships to farmers?
- What is resonating with corporate clients such as Starbucks? Sustainability or functionality? Has this changed in the last few years?
- What is on the horizon for Oatly and the alternative milk sector?
Below is a highlight clip and transcription from our long-form conversation.
Elysabeth: I bring on Julie. It’s great to have you here.
Well let’s go to some of the things that people might already know about Oatly, which is its iconic packaging and how it speaks with consumers. It’s really one of my very favorite brands. It’s so gosh darn original. On the packaging though, you had started to put the carbon footprint and I wondered, usually when we think of Oatly we think of that funny sense of humor and really targeting the younger generations. How did the information of carbon footprint land for the consumer and are you still doing it?
Julie Kunen: Yeah, we’re definitely still doing it. It is really known for its branding. Of course it is known for its quirky packaging and its very unique voice and its brand identity. But I think it’s important to say that brand identity has always included rigorous science. That’s always been, I think, a little bit of the special sauce of the company. We’re actually a serious company with sort of serious science credentials kind of embedded in the quirky or sort of unique way that we express things.
So I think for us, including climate footprints on our SKUs was a way of really saying that this doesn’t have to be boring. This is actually important information. We really want consumers to be able to assess, just as you can go to a supermarket and read nutrition panels and compare two different products and make your choice. We think it’s absolutely essential for consumers to be able to go to the market, compare the climate footprints of products and make their choice based on their values. So we are committed to doing that.
We continue to expand the number of SKUs for which we have that analysis and I should add we have a pretty rockstar in-house team that works to make sure that we’ve got the right data to present those footprints, which then are in turn verified by a third party. So we’re not just making up the numbers. We’re presenting that data but presenting it in a unique way and then doing some really fun campaigns around it are all the ways in which this company works to educate and really advocate the importance of this kind of transparency and product disclosures.
Elysabeth: Yeah, it’s just brilliant and so incredibly engaging. When I see the packaging and that voice, I do just assume you’re going for a younger target market, but is that accurate? Now Oatly is so ubiquitous just everywhere. Is your primary customer still 40 and under, or is it really just all generations?
Julie Kunen: We like to think that Oatly is for everyone and part of the reason we think that is because it’s delicious and everybody drinks coffee. We don’t explicitly say we’re going after a specific demographic. That being said, you don’t need me to tell you that we all read research about Gen Z and Millennials and how their purchase power is increasing and the value that they place on sustainability as a criterion for their food selections. We have a team of barista market developers that are working to sort of keep their finger on the pulse of coffee culture which is certainly maybe something that’s being developed more for younger people.
But really just to come back to that, Oatly we really think is for everybody. I have plenty of people who are in my generation and older who tell me how much they love it. It’s because we lead with taste and functionality also in addition to sustainability. It’s that nutrition, functionality, taste, sustainability package that is the value proposition and we think that that has brought appeal.
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