Food and Drink Industry 6 – 12 July: Ft Oat Cult and Nestlé
- Oat Cult has secured £220,000 in funding led by Anotherway Ventures to support online growth, subscriptions, Amazon expansion, new flavours and brand activity.
- Nestlé has committed to removing artificial food colourings from all products globally by the end of 2026.
Oat Cult Raises £220K as Gut Health Breakfast Brand Targets Online Growth
British breakfast brand Oat Cult has raised £220,000 in a funding round led by Anotherway Ventures, as the young business looks to build momentum behind its probiotic and prebiotic overnight oats.
The funding follows a strong first year for the brand, which has positioned itself at the intersection of convenience, gut health and modern breakfast habits.
Oat Cult will use the investment to support its online growth, scale its subscription model, expand its Amazon presence, develop new flavours and invest in wider brand activity.
Since launching last year, the business has seen particularly strong traction in subscriptions. Last autumn, subscriptions accounted for under 4% of orders. That figure has since grown significantly, with around 70% of new customers now subscribing on their first purchase.
For an emerging food brand, that shift is notable. Subscription behaviour gives Oat Cult a more predictable revenue base, while also suggesting that customers are not just trialling the product, but actively building it into their regular routines.
Amazon Expansion Adds Scale to Oat Cult’s Growth Plans
Oat Cult launched on Amazon in March 2025 with three vegan and gluten-free variants: Cinnamon Mix, Cacao Chip and Strawberry.
Since then, the brand has been invited onto the Amazon Accelerator Programme, an initiative designed to help a selected group of emerging brands scale their presence and performance on the platform.
The move gives Oat Cult a potentially important route to reach new customers beyond its direct-to-consumer channels. For a product built around repeat purchase, Amazon can act as both a discovery platform and a convenience-led ordering channel.
As part of its growth journey, Oat Cult has also been refining its packaging. The business has redesigned its boxes so they can fit fully through letterboxes, while also improving durability during delivery.
Co-founder Ben da Costa said the packaging can now “survive a proper beating in transit”, reflecting the practical challenges that fast-growing direct-to-consumer food brands must address as they scale.
Gut Health Remains Central to the Oat Cult Proposition
At the heart of Oat Cult’s brand identity is its gut-health positioning. Each serving contains more than one billion live cultures, which also inspired the “Cult” name.
The company has pitched itself as more than a functional breakfast option. Its ambition is to create a product people actively want to eat, while building a distinctive community-led brand around it.
Da Costa said the team had created overnight oats that people “actually crave”, while combining live cultures with a brand identity customers want to belong to. He added that the funding round allows Oat Cult to “pour fuel on the online engine that’s working”, while retail momentum continues to build alongside it.
The business was co-founded by Ben da Costa, Marc Donaldson, Josh Clarricoats, Norman-Jo Kremer and Richard Dryden.
Anotherway Ventures, which led the funding round, said it was backing Oat Cult because of its innovation, functionality and memorable brand world. Its managing partner said the business was bringing meaningful innovation to the breakfast category while building a brand that is distinctive and easy to remember.
Nestlé Targets Global Removal of Artificial Food Colourings
While Oat Cult’s funding points to growth in functional, health-led breakfast products, Nestlé’s latest announcement highlights a wider shift in the food industry towards simpler ingredients and cleaner labels.
Nestlé has confirmed it will remove artificial food colourings from all products worldwide by the end of 2026. The move comes just weeks after the multinational completed the removal of artificial colours from its US portfolio.
The company said the global commitment marks an industry first for a manufacturer of its scale. It also reflects growing consumer demand for simpler recipes and fewer artificial ingredients.
Nestlé’s technology chief said consumers no longer appreciate artificial ingredients in the same way and increasingly want simpler formulations. However, the company also made clear that the decision required significant long-term investment.
According to Nestlé, removing artificial colours across a global portfolio was not straightforward. The process involved years of research and development, including screening natural alternatives, testing them during production and assessing shelf-life performance.
That technical challenge is especially important for a business of Nestlé’s size, where reformulation must work across different markets, product categories, manufacturing systems and regulatory environments.
Clean Label Expectations Continue to Reshape the Food Sector
Nestlé’s announcement reflects a broader movement away from synthetic dyes and additives, as food manufacturers respond to both consumer expectations and regulatory scrutiny.
Clean label has become one of the defining themes of modern food production. Consumers increasingly want products that feel recognisable, transparent and less processed, while retailers and regulators are applying growing pressure around ingredient declarations, nutrition and formulation standards.
By committing to remove artificial food colourings globally, Nestlé has placed itself at the front of a major industry shift. The decision is likely to increase pressure on competitors to make similar commitments, particularly those with large international portfolios and family-focused product ranges.
Colour reformulation is expected to remain a key innovation area across the sector.
Replacing artificial colours is rarely as simple as swapping one ingredient for another. Natural alternatives must deliver the right visual appeal, remain stable during production, withstand storage and transport, and perform consistently across different recipes.
Impact on Food Manufacturing and Food Production
Together, Oat Cult’s funding and Nestlé’s reformulation pledge point to two major forces shaping food manufacturing and production: functionality and simplification.
For manufacturers, Oat Cult’s growth shows the commercial potential of products that combine convenience with credible health-led benefits. Gut health, probiotics, prebiotics and subscription-led purchasing are increasingly influencing how new food products are developed, packaged and distributed.
At the same time, Nestlé’s global move away from artificial colours shows how large-scale producers are having to rethink recipes, sourcing strategies, testing processes and production systems.
Reformulation at this level requires investment in research, ingredient validation, supply chain consistency and shelf-life testing.
The wider message for the food production sector is clear. Consumers want products that are functional, convenient and enjoyable, but they also want ingredient lists that feel simpler and more trustworthy.
Food manufacturers that can deliver on both sides of that equation are likely to be better placed as the market continues to evolve.
Conclusion: Innovation Is Moving From Niche to Mainstream
Oat Cult and Nestlé may operate at very different scales, but both stories point in the same direction for the food industry.
Oat Cult’s £220,000 funding round shows how quickly a focused, functional food brand can gain traction when it combines strong product positioning with online convenience and repeat-purchase behaviour.
Its growth in subscriptions, Amazon presence and gut-health credentials suggest that breakfast remains a category with room for fresh thinking.
Nestlé’s commitment to remove artificial food colourings globally, meanwhile, underlines how clean-label expectations are no longer limited to challenger brands. They are now influencing the world’s largest manufacturers and reshaping the way major food companies approach product development.
For the wider food industry, the message is increasingly difficult to ignore. The next phase of growth will be shaped by products that are not only appealing and scalable, but also functional, simpler, more transparent and better aligned with what today’s consumers expect from the food they buy.
News Credits:
Prebiotic overnight oat start-up secures £220K
Nestlé to axe artificial colours worldwide in industry first
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