Ohhh Oatly…

I really hope there are people here familiar with the cartoon series Archer, otherwise this reference is going to fall as flat as Oatly’s recent social media screwup (for those not familiar, the reference involves a “scientist” and an experiment-gone-bad called Goatly; it ended as badly for Goatly as this article will for Oatly).

I digress.

On the 4th of February 2022, global alternative milk company Oatly decided to post three images to their social media that seemingly extolled the virtues of being a “part-time vegan,” of not eating animals or drinking their milk before noon, and other assorted corporatised bullshit. And as you can imagine, it tanked. Big time. Of the 4289 comment the post received (so far), most were critical or mocking. Our favourite vegan chef and comedian, Zacchary Bird wrote “I just cringed so hard that a new milk alternative started squeezing out of my pores.” I would recommend he bottle that shit stat, and get it on the market for people fueled by activated almonds and gentrification.

Shortly after, Oatly issued an “apology” of sorts, which is easily reduced to “hey it was just a joke, sorry you didn’t like it.” Essentially, both posts come across as a mockery of the ideals (and aesthetics) of social justice. How dare we not find that funny. Yes, sorry Oatly that we don’t find animal exploitation and environmental degradation something to joke about. Sorry that so many of us have expended the best years of our lives trying to fight for something better, for a fairer world. Sorry we didn’t appreciate your little “joke.”

But why should we expect anything less from Oatly, a company that has time and again shown how little it is truly interested in justice for other animals, for humans, or for the environment, despite all its clever branding and claims to the contrary? This company has a long history of being an absolute shit show, which people seem to conveniently forget.

Let’s go back to 2018, when it was discovered that the then much smaller company had been selling waste from the manufacture of their products to pig farms as feed. Oatly initially defended their actions, saying it was a method to reduce nutrient waste and to manufacture bio-gas; it was “sustainable” and all that jazz. There was significant public backlash, especially amongst the vegan community who didn’t appreciate finding out they were supporting a company profiting from animal exploitation. However, Oatly did not commit to changing this practice until it became the recipient of a government grant to explore alternatives.

Money talks, right?

Credit where credit is due, at least change did occur and the practice was eventually stopped. Still, within this context it came as no surprise when in 2020, Oatly accepted a $200 million investment from private equity group Blackstone. When announcing the investment, Oatly effectively dismissed criticisms as being indicative of a “world where debates have become dangerously black and white.” This was followed by some trite nonsense about the grassroots history of the company and how they were going to influence the $4 trillion private equity sector towards green investment.

Capitalism just loves a bit of greenwashing.

Some things are black and white, though. Such as Blackstone’s horrific track record, which is well documented. I would encourage readers to simply search the corporation’s name online to see the extensive lists of fuckery these people have been and are currently involved in. Here are just a few recent examples.

From 2007 to 2010, the USA experienced a subprime mortgage crisis that saw millions of people lose their jobs, their homes, and become bankrupt as a result of unscrupulous lending practices by a largely unregulated mortgage industry. People’s lives were destroyed, and property prices tanked. Blackstone swept in and bought up $5.5 billion worth of single-family housing. These were then rented out until property prices rose, whereupon Blackstone sold them for a profit. In 2019, a UN working group report found that Blackstone had charged exorbitant fees, massively increased rents, and employed aggressive eviction practices against tenants. These activities were reported to have disproportionately impacted Black and other deliberately marginalised communities. Blackstone also used resources and political leverage to lobby against laws designed to improve housing accessibility; the corporation spent $6.2 million to lobby against Proposition 10, which would have seen rent caps implemented in California.

Blackstone are also members of the Real Estate Roundtable, a special interest lobby group which spends millions of dollars every year on influencing policy and making political donations.

Speaking of political donations, in 2016 Blackstone co-founder Stephen Schwartzman donated $2.5 million to Republican Mitch McConnell’s super PAC (political action committee), effectively contributing to funding the Republican campaign. He then appointed McConnell’s billionaire brother-in-law to the board of Blackstone; ain’t nepotism grand. In fact, Blackstone employees have “donated” over $10 million to McConnell’s super PAC, making the corporation one of the highest contributing donors.

Schwartzman is (or perhaps “was” given the recent turn of events; that remains to be seen) a close friend of former President Donald Trump, even hosting a $100 000 per plate fundraising event for his mate. What the fuck were those people eating? Or was it more the tax breaks for the wealthy that were on those plates? Schwartzman also sat as Chair on Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum, a business forum which was dissolved after members of the board jumped ship following Trump’s support for the white supremacists who gathered at Charlottesville. They assaulted people and killed a counter-protester. Very fine people indeed.

I know this article is getting long, but how can we discuss Blackstone without mentioning their involvement in the deforestation of the Amazon under the ultra-conservative president of Brazil Bolsonaro’s push to convert the rainforest into clear land for agribusiness interests? Blackstone’s involvement in running a cargo terminal from which millions of tonnes of soy are exported (primarily for livestock feed) as well as the creation of a highway connecting the terminal to the soy plantations is directly contributing to deforestation. Entire Indigenous communities are being displaced as the rainforest is destroyed, and animal habitats are increasingly under threat.

At least these are exactly the kinds of operations Oatly intends to “influence” their major investor away from, right? Well, they’ll definitely have more time for that project now that their law suit against Glebe Farms is over. In 2020, Oatly filed a High Court injunction against the small UK gluten-free oat producer, over the use of blue packaging and Glebe Farm’s use of the word “oaty.” Apparently, PureOaty as a brand name took advantage of poor lil ($15 billion global worth) Oatly’s own branding. Fortunately for the real David in this battle (that’s Glebe Farms incase you were wondering), the judge in this case dismissed the claim and stated that it was “hard to see how any relevant confusion would arise” between PureOaty and the Goliath Oatly.

“Okay, so what’s your point?” you might ask. And you’d be well within your rights to. So far this article does read as little more than a massive slag-off of a company and their associated investors.

From the outset, Oatly has branded themselves as being an environmentally and socially conscious company. Their branding, their marketing strategies, the statistics they have included in their posts, all frame Oatly as being a world leader in ethical manufacture. It is upon this very illusion that consumerist veganism relies, the idea that if we just buy plant-based products we will see animal liberation is pervasive within the mainstream vegan movement. But liberation cannot be bought. Animal liberation is inextricably caught up within the struggles for human and earth liberation. And liberation will not be found through companies like Oatly.

We could open every single cage on every single farm, free every single mother used for milk or egg production, burn down every single slaughterhouse. This means nothing if the systems we replace them with are founded upon the dispossession of free-living animals through deforestation, through the further entrenchment of poverty and marginalisation of human communities, and the advancement of conservative neo-liberal governments with appalling track records on human, animal, and earth rights (and no, I’m not just talking about the Republican party here). In fact, I would argue that even achieving empty cages worldwide is impossible whilst the oppression of humans, animals, and the earth is perpetuated under the very capitalist, neo-liberal system Oatly (and so many other companies) perpetuates.

Only recently, the Food Empowerment Project revealed that popular vegetarian/vegan brand Amy’s Kitchen is complicit in worker exploitation including workplace safety concerns and poverty wages. No Evil Foods fired their entire production staff in Weaverville, without severance pay and cancelling all benefits, in retaliation for an attempt by employees to unionise. In 2019, the the Food and Allied Workers Union in Durban (South Africa) were sprayed with rubber bullets and pepper spray for peacefully picketing a Unilever factory. This occurred mere months before vegans started screaming from the rooftops about the new vegan Magnums, owned by Unilever.

These are just a handful of examples that show that not only is it impossible to buy liberation, but that liberation itself cannot be built upon a foundation of oppression. You may sell plant-based products, but if you are profiting from or perpetuating oppression, then you should have no place in the movement.

When Oatly cracked their little joke about being a part-time vegan (there is no such thing btw), they fed into the narrative that veganism is little more than a dietary choice. They effectively dismissed veganism as a fad to be temporarily worn like a shitty patch on a cheap denim jacket. It’s a fashion, an aesthetic. This undermines the political and ethical core of veganism as a social justice stance against the commodification and exploitation of other animals. It supports the status quo.

It may seem a little tin-foil hat of me, but given the recent history of Oatly and the activities of their major investor Blackstone, I cannot help but experience a moment of unease that perhaps that is the entire purpose; to counter movements that challenge the status quo upon which capitalism relies. Whatever the intention, the harmful impacts of these sorts of advertising campaigns cannot be dismissed. Veganism struggles at the best of times to break out from the mainstream stereotype of diet and fad in order to move towards a genuine political ideology. Oatly’s jocular social media experiment gone bad has hardly helped.

If faced with a choice between a carton of Oatly and a carton of milk from a cow, which would I choose? To be blunt, I’d drink a glass of water instead. Neither are an ethical option. Fortunately, there are many other alternatives. Some brands may be fraught with their own issues; do your research. Some may be inaccessible due to pricing or distribution, and this needs to be addressed; food justice is an important facet of the liberatory struggle. Then there is always the option to make your own. But the main message I would like you the reader to take from this long slightly-sweary article is this: the path to liberation is littered with challenges and distractions. If we are to pursue a liberated future we must be aware of how capitalism uses greenwashing, investment, and acquisition to undermine the potential for actual change.

Sometimes we have no choice but to participate in an economy we cannot escape at this time. Sometimes we can engage in a wholesale boycott. But no matter what, we must always be awake to the realities of the systems we are all buying into, vegan or not, as we seek to change that lived reality for ourselves and for others. And that means opening our eyes to companies like Oatly and the harmful impacts they can have on what is a movement for liberation.

Ohhh, Oatly indeed.