With its range of available flavors and brands, alternative milks are no longer a fringe dietary preference. What began in 2008 as a mere soy milk option has soared into a $16 billion global industry that milks just about any oat or nut it can find. Although still popular amongst vegans and lactic-challenged consumers, these plant-based beverages are increasingly appearing on cafe menus to appeal to the mainstream crowd.

At Houston’s, we’ve noticed a similar rise in alternative milk’s popularity. What could account for this steady climb in the market? One potential answer to this growth: people like the way it tastes.

Still Making a Stir

In 2019, sales of alternative milks made up 14% of the entire milk market, while dairy milk sales remained unchanged. When asked about why they’d made that choice, people often cite environmental sustainability and healthier diets. And by offering new flavors in places where traditional milk has typically been king, alternative milks have found a new and interesting foothold for those who don’t necessarily identify with having dietary restrictions.

Retailers don’t just benefit from new flavors, though. Alternative milks also offer an inherent benefit to the bottom line: shelf life. Newly purchased dairy milk typically spoils within a couple of weeks, making it costly if a carton goes to waste in the refrigerator. Alternative milks have a shelf life of 6 – 12 months, a much more flexible and forgiving timeline.

Taking a snapshot of Houston’s barista-centric alternative milks, you can begin to understand just how dynamic and valuable these flavors can be to a barista.

A creamy and refreshing coconut taste.

Not overly sweet with a light oat flavor.

Rich and creamy with a mild hint of almond.

The Barista’s Choice

While almond and oat have certainly been the most successful of the bunch, there is a crowd for every form of alternative milk. More and more recipes are emerging that call for soy milk, hemp milk, coconut milk, or rice milk. Every day, your customers are expanding their menus with a greater variety of flavor and texture.

Pacific Foods

Oatly

Almond Breeze

The alternative milks in these recipes aren’t just about substituting dairy milk. They play a role in enhancing other flavors, providing a more complex experience rather than a simple liquid base. Suddenly, that turmeric latte has a complimentary hint of coconut that would have been completely absent with the use of traditional milk.

The Houston’s Assortment

Houston’s offers three brands of alternative milks because we understand the importance of variety and preference. You may find multiple almond milks or oat milks across these vendors, but each presents its own formula and a different experience. Oatly’s Barista Edition Oatmilk and Pacific Foods’ Barista Series Oat both provide an exceptional foaming beverage for lattes and other cafe staples, but they aren’t identical. Each brand has its own loyal customers; it’s just about finding what’s right for the ones you do business with.

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The world of dairy-free beverages is full of nut-based milk alternatives. Almond, cashew, macadamia, and hazelnut are just a few excellent examples that can be found in the burgeoning industry of non-dairy beverages. However, for some people these beverages aren’t a sufficient replacement for the richness and texture found in cow’s milk. In addition, many alternatives don’t offer the same nutritional value than that of cow’s milk or other non-dairy options. So, where is the dairy-free community to turn? Recent trends seem to point to the oat.

What is it about oat milk that has recently made it the most popular kid on the block? Well, there are a number of factors that make it different from the crowd, but one of the most cited aspects is its comparable texture to traditional milk. The process of manufacturing dairy-free beverages requires that the primary ingredient (soy, almond, flax, etc.) be ground down and mixed with water. The consistency of that base ingredient dictates the amount of water that is required to make the final product. In instances where the base ingredient has a difficult time holding water, such as in nut-based beverages, more water is required, resulting in a thinner beverage.

However, oats hold water much better than alternative dairy-free ingredients, meaning that less is required to create oat milk. This ability to retain water is core to many of the benefits that oat milk offers. Since it requires six times less water than other options, oat milk has a creamier consistency (akin to cow’s milk), it costs less, and it is even more environmentally-conscious. For many people, these are characteristics that make the decision to drink oat milk a simple one, but all of this means nothing unless it actually tastes good.

Oat milk is made by soaking oat groats (hulled whole grain oat kernels) in water, then blending the mixture and straining it. Because of the aforementioned ability to easily retain water, some of the oat makes its way through the straining process and its flavor also comes through. This results in a slightly sweet, but relatively mild taste when compared to other dairy-free beverages. Many people liken the flavor to that of low-fat or skim milk, but can it provide a nutritional value to replace cow’s milk completely?

Whether oat milk offers the same nutritional value as cow’s milk is currently being debated by nutritionists, but it’s fair to say that the value is comparable and is certainly greater than alternative dairy-free beverages. Oat milk contains about 15 vitamins and 10 minerals, and just one cup of it can provide 36 percent of your recommended daily allowance of calcium. Additionally, you can get10 percent of your daily allowance of iron from oat milk, as well as 10 percent of your Vitamin A intake, which is actually twice as much as what cow’s milk offers. To top it off, oat milk also provides 8 percent of your daily fiber intake. Not even cow’s milk provides that, and other dairy-free options don’t even come close to the rest!

That’s not to say that choosing a dairy-free alternative is a simple decision. There are a variety of options available because there are a variety of people with differing dietary wants and needs. However, oat milk is clearly a rising tide amongst the sea of dairy-free alternatives, and Houston’s is now part of the wave as one of only a few offering early access to Pacific Foods’ Barista Series Oat, a product that is easily going to be popular amongst coffee drinkers with its ability to steam better and pair with coffee’s flavor in more complementary ways. There’s no doubt that the demand for oat milk is going to continue gaining momentum. It may be only a matter of time before it’s dominating the dairy-free beverage market.

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