How local oats play a role in the growth ambitions of plant-based drinks manufacturer Framptons  

Framptons is the UK’s leading independent plant-based drinks company, but it has been through several evolutions to reach the position we find it in today. Sales Director, James Mills sheds some light on the company’s lengthy and fascinating history: “The company is 125 years old. Its heritage was in egg products; it used to wholesale eggs. Then, over the years, it evolved into breaking eggs into liquid, making liquid egg, and then drying it, freezing it, putting it into cartons, and creating omelette blends. That was the way the business carried on for 100 years. Then, around the year 2000, Framptons started packing beverages for customers to minimize machine downtime.  

“The first couple of customers included Marks & Spencer’s for high-value milk products. There was a subsequent relationship with an Australian company, So Good, making a soy milk that was the brand leader in the UK at the time. That was very successful for a few years, spurring Framptons to focus on contract packing as an exciting and potentially lucrative business. From 2005 through to 2015, there was a lot of growth in this area, and the business started packing for brands like Innocent, Shaken Udder and Delamere.  

“In 2019, the company transitioned again, this time reducing its reliance on juices and smoothies to focus instead on UHT plant-based drinks, predominantly soy, coconut, and oat. The last five or six years have seen a huge growth in oat drinks, and plant-based drinks now represent around three-quarters of our business, with the remainder comprising milk drinks, spring water, and, most recently, ready-to-drink coffee. Framptons is always evolving, and the industry is also fast paced; this makes it quite a dynamic environment, which can be exciting but also scary at times, not knowing what is around the corner.”  

Today, Framptons provides products for branded co packing, retailer own label, foodservice own label, and tertiary brands. The company has a unique approach which allows it to offer its customers a highly competitive price point for oat drinks. James explains the strategy: “How we achieve this is quite simple: we are vertically integrated, which means that we have access to our own oats, grown within a 50-mile radius of our factory. This means we have very low transport costs and fewer emissions. This gives us the ability to make oat drinks less expensive than companies making them elsewhere in Europe. Being close to the crop means we can process it quickly and easily without worrying about fluctuations in the market or different contracts we might have.”  

Locally grown ingredients 

Quality is also a critical aspect of Framptons’ oat business. In 2021, Framptons commissioned a state-of-the-art oat extraction plant at its site in Somerset and this facility is where it makes the oat base. James goes on to describe Framptons’ strategy for growth and explains why a new facility plays an important role. “Historically, oat drink products in the marketplace have been made in different ways, typically using oat syrup or oat flour, whereas we make an oat base that can be used as the key ingredient in oat drinks,” he says. “The first component in achieving our targets is to persuade more customers to use our oat base and to switch from other methods, while also persuading more retailers to bring their production to the UK from Europe. Thirdly, we want more consumers to buy our drinks! Penetration of oat drinks still sites below one household in four in the UK, and we believe the quality and consistency of our product beats own label competitors. Part of the natural growth in the market is due to production becoming more affordable. If oat milk was the same price as dairy milk on supermarket shelves, I think we would sell a lot more.”  

Alongside reducing the price of oat milk, Framptons is also looking to boost customer awareness around local production in the UK. To capitalize on this, it has launched its own brand, which celebrates its origins with a Union Jack on the cartons. James explains: “The Wessex Oat Company came about because we were being asked for an oat milk that people could clearly understand was produced in the UK. Some of the brands we pack for were not choosing to put ‘British-made’ on the packaging. We are selling this product to export, wholesale and foodservice rather than to supermarkets and competing with our other brands.”   

Plant-based protein

Soy milk is another area of the business that is expanding alongside the recent successes of oat-based products. James highlights the exciting developments: “Although we are famous for our oat milk, soy milk is also a great alternative because it is very high in protein, whereas oat milk, while a great product, lacks protein. Soy milk is a very old product; it has been around in China and Asia for a long time, and it was the first plant-based alternative to come to the UK. In this country, though, the quality has been quite poor. We have done a lot of work in the research and development of a better, tastier soy milk to bring to the market this year for retailers and foodservice.”  

James then looks to the future, outlining the company’s ambitions for the coming years: “After overcoming some substantial difficulties during and following the pandemic, security and stability are key priorities moving forward. The most important thing is that we are profitable and can look after our employees to provide them with opportunities to develop their careers. We also want to improve our equipment processes and training procedures to become a world-class facility, recognized for its quality. On top of that, we want to be the biggest player in the UK with most of the country’s retailer own label oat milk being ours. This, in turn, will also support British farming and agriculture, and we also plan to push towards becoming a more carbon-neutral manufacturer over the next few years.”   

www.framptons.com