Sweden's Ceba Foods has expanded its dairy alternative brand to include a calcium-enriched version and a 'cream' alternative for use in cooking.
Both products are made with organic oats and contain no milk or soya. Oatly Oat Drink Plus has added calcium for people seeking to increase their intake of the mineral, while the firm's Oatly Cuisine Organic is designed to be used like ordinary cream for cooking. Both are packaged in the customary Tetra-Brik cartons.
Ceba Foods uses a patented process to produce its oat beverages. The milk-like consistency is achieved by removing some of the insoluble fibre during the process. Oat fibre has been shown to reduce raised cholesterol levels and has a health claim in the US.
Ceba Foods is partly owned by a research team in Lund and by Svenska Lantmannen (the Swedish Farmers' Supply and Crop Marketing Association). Skanemejerier (the Skane Dairy) and a number of research funds invested in the company in 2001. The export market accounts for around 50 per cent of Ceba's sales.