Big Read: The battle for the future of milk
11 May, 2021 05:30 AM
9 minutes to read
Photo / FT montage, Getty Images
Financial Times
By: Judith Evans and Emiko Terazono
For the past nine months, scientists at the Lausanne laboratories of the world s largest food manufacturer have been busy working out how best to milk a pea. As the technicians developed their solution combining pea proteins with water, chicory fibres, sugar and sunflower oil they were joining an increasingly competitive fight. With its launch this week of the Wunda yellow pea milk brand, Nestlé became part of the growing international push to convert consumers from the cow s milk drunk for millennia to plant-based alternatives. One rival, Oatly, has grown from humble origins in the Swedish city of Malmö to an upcoming IPO that could value it as high as US$10 billion ($13.7b).