The Oatly Chronicles Part 3: Can Green Capitalism Save Us All?

The Europeans | European news, politics and culture

The Swedish oat milk brand Oatly has taken on some eyebrow-raising investments over the past few years. It insists those investments haven’t changed its proud identity as a climate-saving company – but is that really true? In the third and final episode of ‘The Oatly Chronicles’, we investigate a piggy controversy, why oat milk is so damn expensive, and whether Oatly is acting like a big, bad oat milk monopoly. And we ask: what *should* we be eating, to save the planet?

This series is funded by Journalismfund Europe and the Allianz Foundation.

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Credits: This episode was produced by Katz Laszlo, and reported by Katz Laszlo and Katy Lee. Editing came from Katy Lee, as well as Justine Paradis, visiting from NPR’s excellent podcast, Outside/In. Editorial support came from Margot Gibbs, Dominic Kraemer and Wojciech Oleksiak, and mastering, scoring and sound design also came from Wojciech.

Artwork came from favourite illustrator RTiiiKA.

Thank you for talking to us: George Monbiot, Fredrik Gertten, Laura Young, Ashley Allen, Lisa van der Velden, Thin Lei Win, Sonalie Figueiras, Sara Berger, and Boris de Lorn.

Special thanks to lovely neighbours Joris Klingen and Thomas van Dijk, for letting us use their very nice studio. You can find their music under Bovenburen.

Interesting links:

Oatly’s ‘Fuck Oatly’ website: https://fckoatly.com

‘The Awkward Truth about Oatly and Alpro’: Lisa van der Velden’s reporting in the Financiele Dagblad, December 2022

https://fd.nl/bedrijfsleven/1458366/ongemakkelijke-waarheid-oatly-en-alpro-voeden-intensieve-veehouderij

‘Big Dairy is trying to get Gen Z’ - New York Times, 2023 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/04/dining/milk-dairy-industry-gen-z.html

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