We started off our life in 2015 as The Ancient Grain Company, mainly selling Irish oats abroad - oat flakes and porridge oats into health food stores in Italy and Eurospar in Slovenia, along with some independents in Ireland. By 2019 we'd been making oaty products for years, so it seemed only natural that we should start making oat drinks too. But we didn't want to make just any old oat drink - it had to be the best. That's why we came up with Oatier. After four years, and thousands of hours of research and development, we crafted a bespoke recipe and production process to create a tastier, creamier and dreamier oat drink.
We wanted to make sure that is wasn't just us who thought we'd a great product, so we ran lots of third party, independent sensory trails with trained sensory panels, barista panels and consumer panels. When Oatier was scoring as good as, or better than the market leaders in all sensory categories, we knew that we were ready to launch with a market leading product. We launched our Oatier Barista drink to the market in August 2023, and it's been an instant hit with both baristas and consumers alike. What makes Oatier unique is our use of 100% Irish oats, its smooth, creamy texture, fabulously frothy foam, and that it pairs beautifully with coffee. We also have our Oatier Classic oat drink, which is ready to launch into retail in 2024.
We set ourselves the challenge to not compromise on taste when creating Oatier…or our health… or the planet. Talk about setting ourselves quite the task! We believe in doing our bit for people and the planet. That’s why we use oats. They're greatest of grains when it comes to alternative drinks, so we can be proud to stand over our product as being genuinely sustainable. Our cartons are made from 88% plant based materials, and the cap on top is made of sugarcane too, so that's one less thing to worry about.
We're focused on the cafe market at the moment, as our product pairs so well with coffee, and are currently rolling out in foodservice channels across the island of Ireland.
We are currently selling across ROI into foodservice channels, health food stores, independent grocers and ecommerce, and just starting to export to NI. We're doing some ecommerce to GB, along with selling our oat flakes and porridge oats in health food stores in Italy and in Eurospar in Slovenia. We aresending our first pallet of our oat drink to Mexico in February. Exports currently account for 10-15% of our business.
Our route to market is through distributors, primarily into foodservice. We're currently working with Strathroy Dairy, BWG, Elliott's Foodserivce, and Wholesale Wholefoods to name a few. We are focused primarily of the cafe market at the moment, particularly the coffee occasion, however we are also making good headway into corporates, restaurants, hotels and independent grocers, along with health food stores. We are looking to move into retail in 2024.
We are keen to explore opportunities with distributors in NI, regional distributors in GB who service the foodservice market, Germany, Czech Republic, the Nordics, Australia, Mexico and the U.S.
We have ample production capacity. Our co-manufacturer can produce 20,000 litres per hour on their fully automated machinery. Supply will not be an issue. We've built our business to scale, from our top heavy management structure, to the systems and processes we use, and the ingredients and production partners we work with who are all of large scale and quality.
The team, based in Naas, Co. Kildare, is lead by Managing Director, Neil Brady (ex. Management Consultant at Grant Thornton and ex. Kerry Group), along with our Chairman, Michael McArdle (ex. Director for Consumer Growth at Tirlán, ex. MD of William Grant and Sons (formerly C&C International)). The team is also comprised of our Operations Manager, Eddy O'Connor (ex. Tirlán), Thérèse Moore, our Quality and Compliance Manager (ex. C&C), and our sales reps Padraig Redmond and Alex Lai.
Further details about Oatier can be found on our website and Instagram.