Oat drink maker Glebe Farm enables single site production with new packaging facility

Glebe Farm Foods, the British producer of oat drink PureOaty, has announced a multi-million pound investment into its second-generation Cambridgeshire farm, to bring its entire production process on one site for the first time.

Packaging for PureOaty is set to take place on farm grounds, where the oats are also grown and milled.

Thanks to a new Tetra Pak filling line, part of the brand new facility on the farm, Glebe Farm said PureOaty will be the only British oat drink which is fully produced on a single site in the UK. This will further reduce the product’s food miles– with now just 300 metres between oat milling and where the oat drinks are packaged.

The independently run business, led by siblings Rebecca and Philip Rayner, expects the cutting-edge packaging plant to open in August this year. With the capacity to pack 10,000 litres per hour, it will produce fully sterile packs for 12-month ambient storage in both 1L and 500ml Tetra Pak’s.

The plant will introduce tethered caps across all the brand’s packs. These innovative caps stay attached to the carton to make recycling easier and reduce litter.

“Not only will our new facility enable us to produce in greater quantity, but it’ll help us do so in an even more sustainable way,” Philip Rayner, co-owner and managing director of Glebe Farm, said.

“We won’t need to take our oat drinks elsewhere to be packaged, which will mean they’ll have the lowest food miles of any oat drink brand in the UK. The initiation to use the new tethered caps, set to be the standard across all our oat drinks, will boost the recyclability of our packaging.”

The facility will also create the opportunity for the business to co-pack for other manufacturers or retailers for the first time, generating an increase in capability in the UK plant-based co-packing sector.

“Our new plant is an investment in meeting a growing demand for oat drinks as part of a plant-based diet, Rayner added.

“We know that more and more people in the UK want to know where their food and drink comes from and how it’s made. At Glebe Farm, we’re proud that our oats are 100% sown, grown and milled in the UK. We’re even prouder to now be able to say that oat drinks will leave our Cambridgeshire farm ready to be enjoyed, without being processed anywhere else.

“This upgrade is a big step for us as an independent UK producer, and we’re all really excited about where it will take us next.”