Oat-milk maker Oatly Group AB promoted Global President Jean-Christophe Flatin to chief executive officer, replacing Toni Petersson, who will become co-chairman.
(Bloomberg) — Oat-milk maker Oatly Group AB promoted Global President Jean-Christophe Flatin to chief executive officer, replacing Toni Petersson, who will become co-chairman.
Oatly shares jumped as much as 11%, the most in more than a month, on Tuesday in New York trading after the announcement and the release of quarterly sales that outpaced market expectations.
Flatin will take over the top role on June 1, according to a statement Tuesday. He joined Oatly in June 2022 after more than 30 years at Mars Inc., where he led the company’s pet-food and chocolate divisions.
He arrived with Chief Operating Officer Daniel Ordoñez, who previously worked at Danone SA and Unilever Plc.
The executives have been working to manage the company’s growth as demand for Oatly’s products outstripped its production capacity, leaving an opening for competition.
To resolve the problem, Oatly added new manufacturing facilities and started a major partnership with Canadian manufacturer Ya YA Foods Corp.
In an interview, Flatin said he plans to continue its current path without “any dramatic swing” in strategy.
Since coming aboard, he said the management team has focused on continuing Oatly’s “hyper-growth” trajectory while improving its operating model, strengthening its executive team and bolstering product development.
Oat milk is now the second biggest category of plant-based milk alternatives in the US, behind only almond milk, and it’s still growing quickly.
The category’s sales rose 21% in dollar terms to reach $573 million in US retail sales for the 52 weeks ended April 29, according to data from NIQ. Almond milk, by comparison, had sales of nearly $1.7 billion over the same period, but only grew about 5%.
Oatly essentially created the category of oat milk, and it has resonated with consumers. The Malmö, Sweden-based company now sells shelf-stable and refrigerated oat milks, along with frozen desserts and a substitute yogurt product.
Oatly took a step toward recapturing faster growth in the first quarter, with sales rising almost 18% from a year earlier.
That’s still less than the expansion posted shortly after the company’s 2021 initial public offering, but an acceleration from the single-digit growth of the previous two quarters.
Flatin said the partnership with Ya YA Foods is going well.
Petersson added the leadership transition comes with Oatly’s fundamentals on solid footing.
“We had all the funding in place, we had the supply chain in order,” he said. “We have a strong team now, an operating model and momentum in various regions.”
(Updates share trading in second paragraph and adds details on quarterly results in eighth paragraph.)
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