Oat milk lattes, anyone? The market for plant-based milk, already at $2.3 billion globally in 2022, is expected to grow to $7.3 billion over the next decade. That’s according to a new report released by Portland-based Allied Market Research.

To put that in perspective, the mobile banking industry is currently a $7 billion industry (you know, the apps used by nearly everyone under age 45), and in 2020, the entire plant-based food industry (veggie burgers, almond milk, everything) sold $7 billion total. The GDPs of several countries, including Barbados and Fiji, are below $7 billion.

Oregon has skin in this game. As the third most vegan state, based on counts of vegan people and vegan restaurants (we see you, all-vegan Detroit-style pizzeria and vegan cheese shop), Oregon is also home to Pacific Foods, which produces a dozen varieties of plant-based milk, and is headquartered in Tualatin. (It's owned by Campbell Soup Company.) Portland has even spawned a vegan milk for people who can’t drink other vegan milks.

Which is to say that in Portland, the rise of plant-based milk is udderly unsurprising. Coffee chain Stumptown’s 2018 partnership with industry-leading Oatly came three years before Starbucks rolled out their oat milk option in 2021; Starbucks then faced outcry for charging extra (typically 70 cents) for plant-based milks, eventually bowed to pressure, and dropped the extra fee. Today, three-quarters of Stumptown’s customers opt for a plant-based milk in their lattes, and its vice president of direct-to-consumer business Jon Perry says its oat milk latte “might be the most sustainable latte you’ve ever had.” Other Rose City cafes, like the strictly plant-based Jet Black, don’t give patrons the choice.  

Which plant-based milk is the most popular? While Portlanders love their oat milk, in global sales, soy milk edges out almond milk, trailed by coconut milk, then rice milk. Oat milk is the least popular of the quintet, and forecasters expect all to grow in popularity, but do not expect that hierarchy to change, though experts (okay, it was us) have ranked oat as the tastiest of the five, and environmentalists root for oat milk as well: one roundup found oat milk production to be the least taxing on the environment. Fine, you caught us: this is all one big plug for oat milk. It's creamier, people! Here’s our Taste Test roundup of the best (and worst) oat milks you’ll find on shelves nearby.