Oatly- The New Coke⁠↗

Sugar, tobacco, soda, and many more companies have built billion dollar brands on the back of deceptive advertising. The average consumer fell for it for decades, and government agencies in the U.S. were extremely slow to respond to the growing evidence of what was going on. The first research linking tobacco and lung cancer came out in 1912, but in the 1950s you could still advertise tobacco on TV and radio. So now we have to ask ourselves: What’re the odds that we’ve learned our lesson and this will never happen again? Or could there be a new class of products running the same playbook, building billion dollar brands with clever marketing and deceptive health claims while secretly ruining our health? Enter Oatly

Putting 12oz of Oatly into your latte and adjusting for the higher GI of maltose means adding almost a tablespoon of table sugar to your drink. Put a tablespoon of sugar next to your coffee next time you have a chance and seriously consider if that’s a decision that’s “made for humans.”

I could have written this article about a bunch of new upstarts in the fake-food world, but I’m picking on Oatly because they’ve asked for it. In their cute underdog way, their packaging says: “We must look extremely dumb sometimes. Little Oatly in the south of Sweden thinking we can help the food industry become more accountable for its actions… After all, trust is earned through actions, not talk.” What actions has Oatly taken that would make us trust them? They’ve built an incredible marketing engine and raised 100s of millions of dollars convincing you that you should put sugar and vegetable oil into your coffee each morning, while hand-waving away evidence that they’re harming you. That seems like the kind of action they should be held accountable to. And yeah, they do look a little dumb.