Transcript of the conversation can be found below…

00:00

Now spare thought for Paul Whitley from Sheffield. He popped to us coffee shop in Bolton train station while changing trains.

00:06

And he said, can I have oat milk in my coffee and the response he got was “we don't do that kind of thing here”. Paul told the Bill Bolton news, he was initially surprised by the response before he says, remembering, he was in Bolton. He shared the experience on X, which some of us still call Twitter.

00:22

It went viral with others, telling stories of being turned away when they ordered different kinds of food and drink in the north. Now, maybe you're a fan of oat, or soy, or almond milk, and you've got a similar tale of disappointment, or do you think? No, this is a southern softy thing.

00:40

And you're very much in sympathy with a person who says, we're not going to be serving that in Bolton. Do get in touch with your thoughts, bbc.co.uk is the email, you can text us 88291 or you can WhatsApp on the long number 08000288291.

00:55

So we talked to a Dairy Farmer in Dumfries, Jamie Brackett. Who definitely thinks that oat milk needs to be kept marginal, and Daisy Botha the founder of vegan fairs. Daisy you organise vegan events and markets across the Southwest. But is it just a southern thing?

01:12

I don't know, I mean you do get, I mean my events are just in the southwest but I know plenty of other vegan event organisers who do events up north. So yeah, they do them all across the country so I don't know. Well Jamie, what do you think of the constantly Rising demand for oat milk?

01:28

Well I don’t think it is constantly Rising Jeremy. I mean, I think, actually, WHSmiths who I think were the retailers in uh, in Bolton. Other retailers are obviously available in Bolton. Um, where probably quite right. They've sort of seen that the, the oat…. I'm not going to call it oat milk actually I'm going to call it oat juice because I don't want to get the Jeremy Vine show in trouble with the advertising standards people, but I think they, they feel that oat juice has sort of come and gone.

02:00

This sort of fad, uh, and probably, probably they decided that they weren't going to stock it anymore. If if they did before, and I think it's just quite culturally insensitive in Bolton of all places, which is in, right in the heart of British, dairy country, not in Boston itself, but in surrounding Lancashire and Cheshire. It's a bit like going into a wine merchants

02:23

in Bordeaux and asking for a German lager. Um, you know, so I think the Oat Juice thing is, uh, you know, it's It's intellectually incoherent. Uh it's been proved that on a like for like basis on the available protein. That um, oat juice has three times the carbon footprint of cow's milk.

02:46

So I don't know why anybody would want to put it in their coffee, quite frankly. Well Daisy, you can answer that. Well, I think that's quite, I don't know about oat milk being, uh, three times the carbon footprint of dairy. I don't think that's right at all. Anyway, you know, in terms of supporting, talking about being in the land of dairy, we do plenty of vegan fares, and markets all across Somerset.

03:09

Wiltshire down into, Devon and Cornwall, and in Wales where there's loads of dairy farming and the events are really well responded. And lots of people come along, and they're excited to try new things. What about the idea Daisy as Jamie was saying, that oat milk has peaked. Um, I don't think that's necessarily true but I don't think that's the question of whether or not it's peaked or not.

03:31

It's that some people choose to have it in their drinks. Some people also have allergies to Dairy, I think it's like two-thirds of the world population. Mostly affecting Asian and African nationalities are actually intolerant to milk. So if as a cafe or a restaurant or a pub, you're not willing to offer an alternative.

03:48

Then you're all you're doing, is excluding a whole group of people and you're going to lose money in your business. Well, Jamie, that's true, isn't it? Well like I said, but I mean, I think, you know, people who are lactose intolerant actually they tend to drink um, sheep's milk and and that's that's fine for them.

04:04

And I don't think I think Paul The guy who was trying to get the oat juice in the cafe. Um, I don't think he mentioned anything about that being a health issue. I think he probably was just thinking that he was doing a bit of virtue signalling by uh, saying that he that he was an oat juice drinker rather than a cow's milk Drinker.

04:27

And I, I mean, I can tell you, I'm a diary farmer, but I'm also an arable farmer, so, I could be pretty objective on this. And we do, we do grow oats here as well. Uh, and I can tell you that, we measured the carbon in our dairy pastures against the arable fields.

04:43

And there were 17 tons more carbon in the soil, as opposed in the atmosphere in the dairy pasture than there was in the arable fields. So, I mean, you know, this is a it's a complex issue, but People shouldn't go around thinking that they drinking oat juice is helping the planet because it really, really isn't.

05:03

Well, there we come down to it again. Daisy, is that people who drink oat juice think that, they are stopping a field being trotted on by a cow and cows need a lot of care and that's bad for the planet and there's methane. And, and according to Jamie, it's all wrong.

05:19

Well with all due respect. Jamie isn't the scientist, he's a farmer. Well that a farmers know quite a lot about this stuff. Okay, but he said he's messaging so it's not really. Okay, well I think it's unfair to invite a person who organises events to come and talk about some scientific studies because I'm not a scientist. No fair enough.

05:40

He did reference but he's talking about carbon in the ground and it's actually a carbon in the air and the chemicals that cows release into the atmosphere and not into the ground that is the issue when it comes to Dairy farming. What do you make of him saying it's not milk, It's juice?

05:53

Well, that's fine. You can call it whatever you want. Lots of people call it oat drink but, you know, it's it's it's all about getting people an option and a choice. You're not saying that this Cafe in Bolton needs to stop serving, dairy milk, of course, they're going to continue to serve dairy milk as do

06:11

The majority of all restaurants, cafes, pubs, whatever across the UK. I just think that it's considerate to be inclusive and include other options for other people and you know, you can have arguments about almonds and soya. Fair enough. Those are grown on the other side of the planet, but we do grow oats in this country and there are loads of farmers that grow oats.

06:32

And there are loads of really good sustainable, oat milk companies that are based in the UK. So I don't see why we should support them as well as supporting dairy Farmers. Thank you so much Daisy Botha who is founder of vegan fairs, Jamie, blankett Dairy, Farmer and Dumfries.