Guest View by Marion MacCormick

Again, January has been a tricky month to navigate for the fresh meat and dairy sectors as the vegan rhetoric has been strong, and there has been a plethora of plant-based hard-nosed advertising campaigns and a lot of subliminal preaching.

I have no axe to grind on this, as it is a free market for both plant and meat-based products, but for one oat-based brand, Oatly Milk, their creative antics hit the buffers just at prime time and their marketing campaign pre-Christmas back-fired.

The Swedish oat milk brand has not been the first to be publicly have their knuckles wrapped by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) and told get the facts straight. The criticism this time was directed at their ‘Help dad’ campaign late in 2021.

Alpro, too, had previously been dressed down for 'greenwashing' their product, so at this rate we might get to a place where all claims must be substantiated by science.

The aim of the ‘Help dad’ campaign was to start a conversation on climate change too, but its content was more focussed on criticising the fresh meat and dairy sectors without factual or scientific evidence to validate its claims.

The nub of the offending advert was to claim that Oatly’s environmental impact was far less than the impact of dairy milk and the wider meat industry. The ASA ruled this was misleading.

Please do not be forgiven for thinking this article is out to denigrate oat milk, far from it, as this is indeed an innovative and ingenious way to use oats. Pity we do not have a Scottish brand in circulation as yet – I am sure that is on its way!

Both brands have already moved on and continue to spend considerable sums on quirky advertising campaigns, but are cleverly toning down the detail and veiling the claims in humour.

To continue to entice new customers over to a plant-based diet, many brands will probably continue to claim that plant-based products are ‘better for us and the environment’. We are a long way off in providing the data that will be able to prove this is true and this would, and should be very much dependent on which plant-based products are up for the prize.

Agriculture and the land use in Scotland is diverse and we should be making sure each sector, both plant and meat-based are making the best use of our natural capital and supporting the people who live there, to make the very best decisions for them and all of us, otherwise our food miles footprint might just accelerate, which counters all the best advice.

Richard Wright reminded in his Euro Notebook column a few weeks ago of the US/EU statement that emerged from the COP 26 bluster: "We must work together to devise systems and solutions that are good for agricultural producers, good for consumers, good for businesses, good for communities and good for our planet."

Our Scottish farmers have stacks of common sense and have worked hard through many a year in the face adversity and many acknowledge that change is upon us and are ready to embrace new practice.

If the Scottish policy is forward thinking and expansive, we should be able to support sustainable solutions, improve our productivity, invest in our physical capital and balance out the drive to net zero, with our farmers and rural communities playing an integral role in the drive towards this.