The Emperor’s New Milk

There’s a particular kind of nonsense that only becomes obvious when you set it against something honest. And nothing exposes the nonsense of the recent Oatly legal saga quite like looking at how things are done here in Suffolk: quietly, properly, without the theatrics.

Because while Oatly is busy stamping slogans on cartons and marching into courtrooms claiming oppression, the law has remained exactly the same as it’s always been: milk is defined in UK and EU regulation as the normal mammary secretion of a mammal. Not a grain. Not a nut. Not anything that needs soaking, blitzing, straining, and stabilising before it vaguely resembles something white.

If it doesn’t lactate, it doesn’t make milk. Simple as that.

And this isn’t a dairy‑lobby invention. It’s the same definition used in Sweden, Oatly’s own homeland. Sweden’s National Food Agency has applied it for decades. Oatly grew up under that rule. They know it inside out.

Yet after losing at the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) in 2021, winning a temporary reprieve in the High Court, losing again in the Court of Appeal in 2024, and finally taking the matter to the UK Supreme Court — which, on 11 February 2026, unanimously ruled that “milk” is a protected dairy term — Oatly still behaved as if they’d been blindsided.

It’s an interesting stance, given the clarity of the law.

Fact vs Reality: The Four‑Round Farce

If you want a perfect example of the gap between what’s true and what we’re politely asked to pretend is true, look no further than the dairy‑alternative sector’s legal adventures.

Because this wasn’t one spirited challenge. It wasn’t a misunderstanding. It wasn’t innovation being stifled.

It was four separate attempts to get the UK to pretend oats are milk.

Round 1 — IPO (2021)

Oatly files “Post Milk Generation.” Dairy UK objects. IPO says: No, you can’t use protected dairy terms. Oatly loses.

Round 2 — High Court

Oatly appeals. High Court says: Alright, fine, you can have the trademark. Oatly wins.

Round 3 — Court of Appeal (2024)

Dairy UK appeals that. Court of Appeal says: Actually, no — the law is the law. Oatly loses again.

Round 4 — Supreme Court (11 February 2026)

Oatly escalates to the top. Supreme Court unanimously says: Milk comes from mammals. This is not complicated. Oatly loses definitively.

A principle the courts applied consistently

The whole sequence underlined a basic point of UK law: misunderstanding or disagreeing with a statutory definition doesn’t alter it. “Ignorance of the law is no defence” isn’t a criticism — it’s simply how the legal system works. Each court applied the same definition of milk because that definition is fixed in regulation, not in branding or interpretation.

The Swedish Irony

Oatly is a Swedish company. Swedish food law — like UK and EU law — reserves the term “milk” for mammalian products. They comply with that definition at home.

Which makes their attempt to argue for a different interpretation in the UK an interesting contrast. It’s a bit like turning up at someone else’s house and insisting they rearrange the furniture because you prefer it another way.

If your own country won’t let you call it milk, why should anyone else?

The PureOaty Reality

In 2021, Oatly brought a trademark claim against Glebe Farm Foods, a small family‑run oat farm in Cambridgeshire. The High Court dismissed the case, finding no evidence of consumer confusion or infringement. The judgment is public record.

It’s a useful reminder that legal disputes in this sector don’t always align with the marketing narratives around “big” and “small” players.

Meanwhile, in Suffolk…

Take The Little Ice Cream Company in Felixstowe — a proper local outfit doing things the straightforward way. They make their ice cream using fresh milk from Gulpher Farm, just up the road. Real cows, real milk, real craft. No emulsifiers. No stabilisers. No corporate posturing. Just Suffolk doing what Suffolk does best: quietly getting on with it.

They’re open 364 days a year, producing the only locally sourced and produced ice cream in Felixstowe. No fuss. No slogans. No oat‑based existential crisis.

Just milk. Actual milk.

What the alternatives actually are

A typical UK oat drink — especially the barista blends — contains:

• Water

• Oats (around 10%)

• Refined rapeseed oil

• Acidity regulator

• Added calcium

• Added vitamins

• Salt

Almond drinks often contain:

• Water

• Almonds (around 2%)

• Stabilisers

• Emulsifiers

• Flavourings

• Vitamins

• Salt

Perfectly safe — but very different from the “pure and natural” image the packaging suggests.

The Rapeseed Reality

The creaminess in most oat drinks isn’t coming from oats at all. It’s coming from refined rapeseed oil — the same type of food‑grade oil used across the food industry, from spreads to dressings. It only becomes edible after a multi‑stage refining process involving solvent extraction, degumming, neutralisation, bleaching and deodorising.

Perfectly legal. Perfectly safe. But it’s a long way from the “just oats and water” impression many consumers are left with.

If you have to run a seed through an industrial refining process just to make your “milk” feel creamy, maybe — just maybe — it isn’t milk.

What these drinks would be called if named honestly

If these drinks were named strictly according to their second‑largest ingredient, rather than the ingredient used for flavour or branding, the labels would look very different:

• Oat & Rapeseed Oil Drink

• Almond & Gum Drink

• Soy Drink

• Coconut Extract & Stabilisers Drink

• Rice Extract Drink

• Cashew & Gum Drink

This isn’t a legal argument — just a compositional observation based on typical ingredient lists. But it does highlight the gap between image and reality.

The Vegan Pound, Not Veganism

This isn’t about vegans. Most vegans simply want something for their tea or coffee, or something to pour over their cereal. Yorkshire Tea might insist only milk truly works, but even their boffins are trying to help people find alternatives. Vegans don’t want anything to do with animal products, and that’s their choice — a choice I respect in the same way many of them respect my decision to eat nose‑to‑tail.

Meanwhile, the irony is that plant‑based drinks are some of the most industrially manufactured foods on the shelf. In the US, the leftover almond pulp from almond‑drink production is routinely sold as cattle feed. The “anti‑dairy” drink literally ends up feeding dairy cows.

You couldn’t script it better.

The Only Food That Actually Comes From a Factory

British dairy and meat come from farms. Plant‑based drinks come from factories.

Not in a moral sense. Not in an accusatory sense. Just in a literal, physical sense.

Milk exists before the factory. Oat drinks don’t.

Cows produce milk. Oats don’t.

Rapeseed grows in a field — but rapeseed oil only becomes edible after industrial refining.

So the contrast is simple:

Farming → light processing → food vs Crops → industrial refining → chemical processing → blending → product

Both are legitimate food categories. But only one markets itself as the opposite of what it is.

The Bit Everyone’s Thinking (but too polite to say)

It doesn’t matter how thoroughly you soak or blend a nut or grain — the result is not milk under any regulatory definition. That’s not a criticism; it’s simply how the law and biology define the term.

You can press an almond until it files a complaint. You can wring an oat like you’re trying to get the last drop out of a flannel. You can even run the whole lot through a machine that sounds like a tractor having an existential crisis.

Still not milk, even if it desperately wants to be.

The truth, Suffolk‑style

Milk is milk. Oats are oats. Nut juice is nut juice. And here in Suffolk, we’ve never had trouble telling the difference — even if we’re too polite to say it out loud.