Drink Good Do Good - Blue Farm

As VEGANUARY is still going strong and gaining popularity each year, we sat down with Katia Helf, a long-standing customer of ours and one of the founders of Blue Farm, the new revolutionary plant based oat milk alternative.

1) What is Blue Farm?

Born and raised in Berlin, Blue Farm is on a humble mission to shape the future of plant-based milk together with you. Our credo: Drink good. Do good.

Did you know that plant-based milk usually consists of up to 90% water, which is unnecessarily transported and packaged? We want to change this by going back to Base. Literally, as we developed the first oat milk powder - our Oat Base - that lets you create fresh, delicious oat milk in just 10 seconds. All this without unnecessary additives which you can find in many ready-to drink oat milks on the supermarket shelf.

By putting the milk into your own hands, you save up to 90% packaging waste and up to 70% CO2 emissions! It’s basically a win-win situation for you and (y)our environment.

2) Why did you decide to launch Blue Farm?

I personally haven’t had any cow’s milk since 2012, so I guess you can call me a plant-based milk consumer by nature :) Reason being that, I was oftentimes frustrated by all the additives added to those drinks to make them last longer. Or those Monday mornings where both the fridge and carton were empty. Yup, not my cup of tea, erhhh milk.

But the actual idea behind Blue Farm started with Phil (my co-founder) obsession for cappuccinos: he often took one too many cups per day, which in turn implied a serious stash of milk carton waste at the end of the week. Determined to do better, he started making his own milk alternative. And a couple of exploding blenders later, that resulted in the classic lightbulb moment: plant-based milk is nothing more and or less than a plant extract enriched with water.

3) What’s so special about Blue Farm?

With Blue Farm we want to enable everyone to start the day by making a small contribution - to yourself and to our planet. Our Oat Base consists of 100% natural ingredients and heavily reduces your footprint on our planet. Unlike cow’s milk, you cannot milk a plant - so why would it be treated as such? Especially because powdered plant-based milk has so many advantages over cow’s milk packed in a carton: Oat Base can be easily shipped into your postbox and after opening stored at home for a couple of months. As you can freshly prepare the m!lk whenever you want, you can put an end to drink waste and throwing away half-full milk cartons which got old in your fridge.

4) Why is this milk better than conventional oat milk from the supermarket?

Industrially produced oat milk can contain a lot of sugar and other additives. For example, our Oat Base has a much lower sugar level compared to the average oat milk (1,3 g on 100 ml, market average 4,2 g on 100 ml). In addition to that, our freshly made oat milk doesn’t need any additives, unlike oat milks from the supermarket which have been filled up weeks or even months ago.

5) Where do you get your ingredients from?

All our ingredients are from within Europe, but we always try to source as much as possible regionally, to avoid unnecessary transport emissions. For the next production we aim to source and produce organically (get bio label) and source all ingredients regionally from Germany. Fun fact is, we are already approached by farmers via social media who want to produce their oats for us.

6) How is the Oat Base made?

In our production the oats are treated enzymatically, so that they get a light sweetness and nice creaminess once dissolved in water. This way we can also stay away from binders, which can be found in many ready-to-drink oat milks.

7) How to use it?

Our Oat Base is very easy to use: For 100 ml of oat milk you take a heaped tablespoon (10 g) of our Oat Base. You can also easily adapt it to your liking: Take less oat base if you are conscious about your calorie intake or add more if you want to sweeten up your day.

8) Any special recipes you can recommend with Blue Farm milk?

You can make any kind of meal with our Oat Base! But what works especially well are any kind of porridges and overnight oats. It also works great for protein shakes, as you can easily put both upfront in your shaker before your gym class. Keep an eye on our instagram @bluefarmco and our online magazine “The Blue” as we post lots of yummy recipes there.

9) Does it work with coffee? What about Matcha?

Yes! It is foamable and thus works very well for coffee and matcha. I guess you can call it an “all-in-one” oat base :) But we’re also planning to launch a barista edition, with which you can create your own cafe at home. Keep you posted!

10) Would you recommend oat milk for kids and babies?

Our Oat Base is good for young and old! Especially since it contains a relatively low amount of natural sugar (see above) and salt (0,02 g per 100ml, market average 0,1 g per 100ml). Apart from that, our Oat Base is also lactose- and gluten-free, and free from additives / stabilizers.

Generally, oat milk does not contain calcium and is therefore not a source of calcium for children in the growth phase. The good thing is calcium can be also found in many other foods such as broccoli, spinach or even in tap and mineral water. This means that your kid’s calcium intake doesn’t necessarily need to come from cow’s milk but can also be ensured through a balanced diet (but little spoiler alert from the Farm, we will launch an Oat Base with calcium very soon).

Sounds good? Tastes even better. Try it yourself now on www.bluefarm.co with a 10% “bluecycle”.

Interview: Katia Helf, Co-Founder Blue Farm / Jennifer Goelitzer, Co-Founder BECYCLE Düsseldorf