---
title: Oat milk is up 7.2%. Would you have seen it in time?
seo_title: Oat milk growth and spotting shifts in consumer demand | Advise
description: Oat milk now makes up nearly 40% of UK plant-based drinks. How category and RGM teams spot shifts in demand early enough to act on them.
slug: /news/oat-milk-consumer-demand
template: article
date: 2025-11-27
category: Point of view
author: Advise
schema: Article
tags: [category, core]
---

# Oat milk is up 7.2%. Would you have seen it in time?

UK oat milk sales grew 7.2% year on year, and oat now makes up nearly 40% of the plant-based drinks market, according to The Guardian.

Shifts like this rarely arrive as headlines. They show up first as a few extra points of rate of sale in one retailer, a segment that keeps gaining distribution, or a competitor's new pack that holds its price. For category and RGM teams, the hard part isn't spotting a trend once it's in the press. It's acting on it while there's still growth to capture.

## Three signals worth watching

- **Segment growth against the category.** Is the segment growing faster than the category around it, and in which retailers first?
- **Rate of sale where it's ranged.** Growth from new distribution looks very different from growth in rate of sale. The second tells you shoppers are choosing it.
- **Price and promotion.** Is the segment growing at full price, or only on deal? Promotion-led growth rarely lasts.

## Act on it in the range review

Buyers make space decisions on evidence. A brand that walks in with the segment's growth, its rate of sale and the incremental value to the category is the brand that gets the space.

With [Core](/core), every retailer's data is harmonised into one view, so segment trends, distribution and rate of sale are ready-made and refreshed with every data drop. With [Intelligence](/intelligence), you can ask "which segments are growing ahead of the category in Tesco?" and get the answer with the evidence.

[Book a demo](/demo) · [See Core](/core)