Planet Champions: Mike Curtis

How is one company cutting the carbon footprint of oat milk?

The carbon cost of our food system

The way we grow our food has a big impact on its final carbon footprint – but so does its transportation. In fact, it’s estimated that food miles emissions represent about a fifth of the food supply chain’s total carbon footprint.

The heavier and bulkier an item is, the harder it is to ship, leading to significantly higher carbon emissions and costs for food companies. This is particularly the case for liquid products, including fridge favourites like milk. About 90 per cent of milk is water, so with 15 billion litres of the stuff being shipped around the UK every year, that means huge amounts of time, effort, and fuel are being spent transporting a liquid that we can get directly from our kitchen taps at home.

Plant-based milk alternatives may offer environmental savings in some respects, but the issue of shipping huge volumes of high-water-content products remains. Recognising the absurdity of this – and the potentially enormous emissions savings that could be made – Mike Curtis founded MYOM.

An interview with Mike Curtis

Instead of shipping full cartons of milk, MYOM – which stands for ‘Make Your Own Milk’ – produces compact pouches of oat premix. At home, customers simply pour the premix into a bottle along with a litre of tap water (or 500 millilitres, if using one of the smaller 65-gram pouches) and shake to combine. Customers can either buy MYOM pouch refills and use their own bottle, or purchase full starter kits, which include a screw-top glass bottle. Because MYOM is long-life, it also doesn’t need to be refrigerated during transportation – and customers can store their pouches in the cupboard until they’re ready to be mixed and used.

Bringing MYOM to life

With 25 years of experience in building leading consumer brands all over the world, from Virgin and Adidas to Samsung, the initial idea behind MYOM came to Mike when he was living in the Middle East for work and his son developed an intolerance to lactose. 

Wanting to find viable lactose-free alternatives, Mike investigated availability and discussed the matter with an old friend who had since become the CEO of Dubai Airports. The pair spoke about the growth of plant-based alternatives, the financial and environmental challenges facing the dairy industry, in contrast with the convenience of the traditional British electric milk float. During the discussion, “He told me an anecdote: that the milk round in Dubai is a 747 that comes in every morning from Belgium.” 

Business for good

“A combination of trying to find a solution for my son, and then also the exposure that I was getting to the absurdity of global food systems made me think that there must be a better way.” When the pandemic brought Mike and his family back to the UK, he reached out to contacts and past colleagues for their feedback on his initial ideas – including Steven Day, the former Corporate Affairs Director for Virgin Mobile and current doctoral researcher in sustainability at the University of Cambridge, who’s now a shareholder and sustainability advisor for MYOM.

“MYOM is one of those really good ideas that everybody wishes they’d thought of themselves,” Steven explains. “When you look at the complexity of how milk or plant milks are moved around the world, you think ‘Well, why has nobody thought of this before?’ I’d say it feels obvious, and that’s a good sign when you stumble on one of those ideas.”

Both Steven and Mike highlight that their time working with the Virgin Group has shaped the way they approach new ventures – not least MYOM. “Virgin as a group has developed over many decades,” says Steven. “One thing that’s been common with it throughout is the sense of adventure and of trying new things. I suppose the thing that I came away with is that it’s okay to think bigger ideas in one’s career or the companies that one works for – to try and push boundaries.” Speaking to that spirit of trying new things, several other MYOM shareholders also have a background at Virgin, like Mike and Steven.

“One thing that informed everything was really to work back from the customer. So, it was always customer-first and people-centric. Doing the right thing by people ultimately has informed the kind of proposition that Virgin has today, which is to change business for good,” Mike expands. “It was also about thinking beyond iterative solutions, to think more about cross-category solutions and look for opportunities where there’s genuinely a better way.”

Coming to market

Working with a food developer and supportive team, it then took about 18 months to go “from an idea into a viable product to scale,” says Mike. “The big question was how do you stitch ingredients and production to a product that you can deliver to the consumer without adding water in between. That’s the science in it.” As opposed to a dry base ingredient, MYOM settled on a paste-like premix (which resembles honey in terms of consistency and colouring) that quickly turns into a rich and silky oat milk drink when shaken with water.

Building the MYOM offering revolved around three “triggers to purchase”, according to Mike. “First of all, there’s taste. Then, there’s good or better nutrition – it’s got to offer a minimum of what the consumer is already buying that product for in the category, and ideally more,” Mike says. “If possible, it should also be cheaper because, all too often, sustainable solutions are more expensive. MYOM does all three.”

According to the company, its approach means the carbon footprint of its oat premix is around half that of other plant-based milks, and less than a fifth of dairy. But as well as offering a more sustainable product, Mike was also committed to developing an offering that was competitive in terms of nutrition. As well as being fortified with vegan-friendly vitamins D3 and B12 and iodine, MYOM also contains more calcium than dairy milk.

Looking forward

“There are a lot of people already reimagining food systems for the better, for the future, and MYOM fits into that journey…but I think we can do more,” says Mike. “We can do more around our packaging, our delivery. What we’ve got here is a product that people really like – they like the taste, they like the idea, and they find it good value. We’re on a journey now to optimise this over time, to minimise our impact whilst maximising taste and nutrition.

In terms of next steps, the MYOM team are looking at expanding the product range to include barista, fat-free, sugar-free, gluten-free, and organic options. “There’s another area that I’m very interested in at the moment that we’ve started on, which is around dairy-identical that mimic the nutritional benefits of dairy proteins but are produced with precision fermentation,” Mike tells us. “There are a number of brands in the market now that are offering a ready-to-drink version, but I think if we can deliver that as a base, as a premix – I think that’s very interesting.”

As well as exploring more circular options to make it easier for the consumer to reuse and recycle MYOM packaging, MYOM is also working on expanding its distribution, and has plans with a number of UK retailers who will stock MYOM in their stores in 2025. But as the company expands internationally, Mike highlights that keeping things local is also essential: “In time we plan to localise production for the markets that we’re serving. So, for the UK, we’re making and packing in the UK, but we would do the same in other territories over time. It doesn’t make sense to ship a product and ingredient, let’s say, to the UK, and then ship it back overseas to be sold. This defeats the idea and purpose of MYOM to minimise the impact of the category.”

Interview By: Matilda Cox