Oat-based milk substitutes in Estonia: a great overview

Normal person would probably like to have a rest in the summer, right? I am probably not really average person, because I decided to spend the summer in the laboratory on my bachelor thesis. Namely, I had a wonderful opportunity to join a really great science organization, the Center of Food and Fermentation Technologies and work there on topic, which is very close to my heart and is well in line with my lifestyle. So I grabbed the opportunity with great enthusiasm and here I am now. Work is otherwise like laboratory work, it is tiring and needs patience and accuracy, but at least it's a noble goal.

Now to the point. To develop a new product, one would firstly have an overview of the current state of the market, so we started to taste all kinds of oat based milk substitute products that are available in Estonia. In addition, Hanna kindly agreed to bring me some of the most interesting products from Finland, which are not sold in Estonia.

We tasted 11 different natural oat milks, three chocolate flavoured milks, seven different yoghurts and one cooking cream, vanila sauce, sour cream substitute, cream cheese substitute and pudding. Technically, they can not be called milks or yoghurts, but can be found under names such as oat drinks, fermented dessert, oat snack, oatgurt or oatyogur but for simplicity I still use spoken language. Here they all are:

Fortunately, I found all the necessary "only" from six grocery stores - Prisma, Hyper Rimi, two Biomarkets, Solaris´grocery store and Kaubamaja´s grocery store. I got numerous things and my poor bicycle was dying with the weight of all these packs when I first landed them home and then to Mustamäe. At home, oat milk products conquered all my fridge, but fortunately it was not for long.

First, I will give you an overview of non-seasoned oat-based milk substitutes. We tried:

• Oatly natural;
• Oatly IKaffe for coffee;
  
• Alpro;
• Rainbow;
• IsolaBio;
• MonSoy;
• Allos;
• Joya;
• Planti;
• ICA and 
• Hofgut Storzeln.

Besides me, the tasters were my supervisor, two teammates and three assessors, that is, a trained sensory evaluator of food. They are daily engaged with analysis of various products. Do not worry if you do not recognize all the flavours and smells described below. They have better perceptions, they are educated and trained. Let's leave it at that.

The oatmilk selection seems to be very broad on the market and is well-established. Here is a simple overview for a person who has not tried everything, to help you navigate in the market smoothly.
In general, all drinks are good, but there are some differences.

Sweet tooths can look at Monsoy, Isola Bio and Hofgut. There are no added sugars, but it's probably the case in raw material processing. On the other hand, we found MonSoy one of the least good products. It was just watery and sweet like sugar water 😕 It also had brownish colour, which is not bad by itself. Hofgut had a strong cereal smell, greyish colour and in addition to sweetness a bit salty flavour. Isola Bio had a nice whiter colour, which looked almost like one would expect from milk. The smell was fruity and intnsively cereal-like. The mouthfeel left us a little floury.

At the same time, Alpro, Rainbow and IKaffe were much more salty than others.
The highest oat content milks are IsolaBio and Allos (16%). Allos standed out as a special one with it´s considerably brownish tone and roasted taste. This milk was our best estimate. It also makes the drink special that calcium is not added to it in the form of calcium carbonate or tricalcium phosphate as usually, but in form of calcium-rich algae.
On the contrary, Planti contains least oats, only 7.5% and is also considerably more dilute and watery than others, but it is not bad.
Fo those who are looking for something creamy and rich, for coffe for example, the best choice is Oatly IKaffee, which contains 3% fat and is the only oat milk, which is twice fattier than the others. Personally I only buy this when I have a chance, because it is rich and is okay with dilution for my morning´s oatmeal, it will last for longer😊 Also, foaming for a coffee or cocoa will create a beautiful foam and there is no feeling like pouring water on your drink.
In the case of Rainbow, which is the cheapest on offer, we found that the price/quality ratio is in place. It is also the milk most enriched with vitamins.
Oatly, the most recognizable oatmilk producer, remained eye-catching with its stable quality and is a good neutral product.
Alpro drink contains the most emulsifying and stabilizing agents, as all the drinks from this company, but still has the least sugar. The taste was good too.
Joya and ICA, not yet mentioned, were completely mediocre oat drinks, Joya has strong cereal smell and is pretty sweet, ICA was found less sweet and rather salty.

Now is the turn for chocolate flavoured oat drinks. I found three options from the stores.

Scotti Oat Cocoa  drink has a cocoa scent, but the color is more pale than for the other chocolate drinks. The taste is a little bittery, which is not disturbing because it resembles bitter chocolate.
Oatly Chocolate Oatmilk is available in both one-liter packages and small strainers. Drink has a strong aroma, but it is more like caramel, iris and vanilla than chocolate. Also, the flavour it's too much processed and has the taste of Snickers rather than chocolate. The texture is more durable and more floury.
Nalle is only available in small strainers. In terms of color it is the darkest, but has no smell. The texture is thick and floury, recalling almost an old-style milk pudding (piimakissell), like those that I had in kindergarten, but it is not disturbing. On the contrary, Nalle received the most positive feedback from the three chocolate drinks assessed.

From left to right: Scotti, Oatly and Nalle

Now to the yoghurts.

The Oatly Natural Oatgurt was best appreciated. This is the only available non-flavored oat-based yogurt in Estonia (so far). In the aspect of taste and texture it reminded a real yogurt the most, but the taste of the grain made it feel. For those who are used to cow milk yogurts,  would probably feel a difference, but it's still worth the product. Initially, when it came to the store, I did not buy it because of the

price, but the heart didn´t give peace and now, damn, it was so good that now all my money goes there. I should start making the yogurt on my own, so that the wallet doesn´t leave too thin. Overall, Oatly natural oatgurt was our favourite among all yogurts. Thumbs up! 

But Oatly Strawberry Oatgurt was a great disappointment. The color was very pale and not berry at all. The smell was a pleasant strawberry for me, but the more experienced noses felt right away a chemical compound giving the strawberry flavour. Also, the poor one did not have taste at all, would there  be at least pieces of strawberry of something! It was even in lack of sweetness. It's  sad to pay more than three euros for such a liter of yogurt. But at least after eating you can cut out the stencil!
One great plus for all products at Oatly is that they are very humorous and chill design.

The BonSoia cranberry-flavoured yoghur (Jõhvika kaeajogur) (Yes yoghur, not yoghurt) was much better in color and odor, but the texture was rather viscous and gel-like. The pieces of oat gave it a favour. We found the cranberry well suited to the taste of oats. The taste was very good, fruity and not too sweet.

From Yosa we tried five products. Yosa Fruits of the Forest had a strong berry smell, thicker  texture, but it also resembled rather a viscous gel, a bit swollen in starch. Mildly sour taste, not too sweet. We also found words like pudding and liquid semolina foam (vedel mannavaht) to describe it. The overall impression was pleasing. 
The Yosa Plum had very plumy aroma, but was pale in colour. The plum pieces were pretty good. Yosa Strawberry-Banana reminded a smoothy, the flavour was more sour, but less sweet and empty. Those three are available in Estonia, but we aslo got to try 

Yosa Natural from Finnish market. This one was surprisingly liquid for it´s container, could be better in a carton. The colour was slightly greenish, maybe because of package, but it looked a little strange. The taste was sour. Overall it was more like a kefir than a yogurt. 

Yosa Greek Style was also more liquid than we expected to be for a greek yogurt. It had no aroma and also tasted unflavoured. Had a lack of salt in my opinion. As appropriate for a greek yogurt it was much more fatty, compared to the other yogurts (11% fat). Mouthfeel proved the fattyness, it felt indeed really fat in mouth. Taste was sour, a perfect sour cream actually, rather than yogurt!

Valio mango

Last but not least were Valio Oddlygood kurapohjainen gurtti. Firstly natural and secondly mango flavoured. When Yosa was runny for it´s container then Valio natural was too thick and it was difficult to pour from the one liter carton package. The smell was sour-sweet. C
oncistency was plumpy and again yelly-like. As matter of taste it was less sweeter than Oatly Natural, the aftertaste was bitter and had touch of oats. Some assessors found it to be like overcooked morning porridge. The opinions split. Some liked it and some didn´t. I liked it. 
Valio mango has finally in right package, a 150 g one. It had a light yellow colour and strong smell of mango. Concistency was again bit like a gel. The flavour was really sweet so that the sweetness hid all other tastes and maybe also mistakes. The yoghurt had small mango pieces, but they were not recognizable in mouth.

Bauer´s fermented dessert with red berries (Vegan Genuss Beerenmüsli)  

got a pleasant appreciation. The smell was fruity and felt like rhubarb. The texture was like a yoghurt, it did not remind a viscous pudding, but was creamy and you could feel berry, as well as cereal crusts and even red currant seeds, that some liked, but some disliked. Some found the taste too artificial. I am sorry that I made Solaris´ shelves empty after grabbing all the remaining three packs for testing! Eventually we didn´t need that mucn so I was more than happy to take the rest home 😋

Now is turn for the products that can not be classified in any way.

Natur Green Oat Red Fruits Dessert (Avena Frutos Rojos) first looked ugly. The color was brown, the texture was jelly-like and not right at all. Someone's reaction was: "Oh, how disgusting!" Indeed, it tasted like a cough syrup and had a slushy aftertaste. We could not believe that any product developer has been willing to market such a thing and the company is still asking for this price! Terrible product.

The Planti Vanilla Sauce (Kaura Vaniljakastike Creami Vanilla) is available in small packages. The colour was made beautifully yellow with beta-carotene, but some people found it unnatural. The texture was greasy but too fluid. The taste was sweet, slightly slushy and floury. Starch flavored over. I would not dare to put this thing in my Napoleon's cake or serve somewhere as a sweet topping. At the same time, at home I mixed cocoa powder with the rest of the vanilla sauce and ate it as a pudding. Pretty good pudding it was! Especially if you eat it at half a night when you discover that you aren´t sleepy anymore and you have no will to do anything else than destroying the contents of the fridge.

The Planti Creamy Cooking Original (köögikoor) is available in larger and smaller packages. Of all the tried and tested products, it was the only bright white in colour! The taste was sweet, savoury, and worked as coconut. It was creamy, but I do not imagine where it would fit well. At Vegan Väljasõit it was once served as sour cream on soup. It had a strange effect there because of it´s sweetness. Perhaps it goes well in indian currys or puree soups?

Oatly Creme Fraiche, a sour cream substitute, tasted very...tastlessly. Completely pale and empty. It was a little savoury like sour cream, but if you try to make potato salad, for example, make sure you have a lot of salt, spices and plant-based mayonnaise by your hand. The Yosa Greek Style yogurt was a better sour cream than this one.
Oatly Oat Spread for sandwich or so-called  cream cheese was sour, creamy, rich and salty. The texture was beautiful for the cream cheese. Again we felt a lack of flavours. But maybe they leave  the flavouring to everybody´s own creation, pick fresh dill, chive or basil from your garden or whatever you desire! The result is probably very good on bread.

This is all for the tasting and overview. I hope it is helpful in orienteering in the not yet very large but rapidly growing plant-based food market. As result of the experiment, we agreed that there are various products, but they differ in quality and there is space for develoption. Also the prices are somewhat too high but they will probably decline by the time. What more consumers the more products and the more providers. What more providers the cheaper price! So eat plant-based products and raise demand!

 I would like to thank Markus for recommending to write a blog post about this experiment and emphasizing to do it in English!

Finally, I will add here some links with all these tasty products. First of all, there are more information on the websites and, secondly, I want you to envy our neighbors who have plenty of products that are not sold in Estonia. Indeed, Hanna sent me a picture of the Finnish vegan „dairy“ stall and in one store there were almost everything I was chasing from six stores!

http://www.oatly.com/products/international/

https://www.yosa.fi/tuotteet/

https://www.valio.fi/tuotteet/valio-oddlygood/

https://planti.fi/Tuotteemme
http://naturgreen.es/en/product-category/organic-non-dairy-desserts/