MALMO, SWEDEN — Oatly Group AB is preparing to implement in North America the go-to-market strategy it has deployed in other regions of the world. 

The focus will be on foodservice, activating consumer interest in the company’s products and initiating trial through various marketing efforts that will lead to trial and repeat purchases of the company’s products at retail.

At foodservice, the company will work with operators to add signature beverages to their menus to drive news and engagement. The effort will be supported by marketing programs and aligned with retail instore execution intended to drive trial and market share gains.

Oatly launched the strategy in Europe and achieved positive volume growth, said Daniel Ordonez, global president and chief operating officer.

“North America is the largest market where we have not yet rolled out this playbook, but the strategic direction will be identical, and so is the external context and the relevance of the brands and the portfolio,” he said.

The company will start rolling out the new strategy in North America during the second quarter.

While management expressed optimism about the future results of the playbook rollout in North America, they also admitted that the company was challenged in the region during the first quarter of 2025 and will be through the rest of the year. Impacting results were a change in the sourcing strategy of one of the company’s largest customers in North America and stock-keeping unit rationalization of certain frozen items, Ordonez said.

“While we expect these headwinds to continue to impact our year-on-year growth rates for the rest of the year, we view them as temporary,” he said. “We were able to offset some of these headwinds, most notably with distribution gains on the core portfolio. However, the gains were not enough to offset the declines from the largest customer and frozen.”

For the quarter ended March 31, Oatly recorded a loss of $12.5 million, an improvement when compared to the same period of the year before when the company recorded a loss of $45.8 million.

Quarterly sales ticked down slightly to $197.5 million from $199.1 million the year before.

North America was the weak region for the company during the quarter, with sales falling 11% to $59.9 million from $67 million the year before. Quarterly volume fell to 34.5 million liters from 38.7 million liters during the first quarter of 2024.

In the company’s Europe and International segment, sales fell 2.5% to $107.7 million from $110.4 million. The decline was attributed to foreign currency. Business unit volume rose 4% to 80.6 million liters from 77.5 million liters.

In Greater China, sales rose 38% to $30 million from $21.8 million. Volume rose to 29.4 million liters from 16.1 million liters.

The company maintained its outlook for the rest of the year of constant currency sales growth in a range of 2% to 4% and that it will achieve profitable growth for the first time.