A few weeks ago, while in Cologne for ANUGA, I took the chance to swing by The Oater to see what all the buzz was about. What started as a quick visit turned into a deep dive into the future of oat milk production — I geeked out in their lab, sipped some genuinely excellent oat drink, and spent a few hours talking with Henrik Burger, the company’s co-founder and CEO.

The Oater’s premise is pretty straightforward: if oat milk is 90% water, why ship it across Europe in heavy, single-use cartons? Instead, what if cafés, canteens, and caterers could produce it fresh — on-site, at the push of a button — with less waste, lower cost, and a better taste? The result is The Oater Barista, a compact, patent-protected “mini-factory” that turns oat mix and tap water into barista-quality oat drink on-site. It’s a clever blend of engineering, microbiology, and user-friendly design — and a glimpse of what localized food production might look like in the not-so-distant future.

I studied Economics in Mannheim and at the London School of Economics, always drawn to how technology can turn simple ideas into scalable businesses. Already in my first semester, I joined a startup initiative for entrepreneurship and got a front-row seat to the thrill and chaos of founding — late nights, big visions, and constant problem-solving.

Along the way, I worked in B2B tech, where I learned that even the best ideas need clear ROI and sound cash flow logic — lessons that later shaped The Oater’s business model.

During COVID, my flatmates and I (now my co-founders) started Kitchening, a side project making flowchart-style cookbooks for companies. It actually became a reasonable business, and with the profits we built our first oat milk machine prototype.

Oat drinks are the preferred milk alternative in Europe (€5B market size) and continue to gain popularity. Yet foodservice and hospitality operators face the same structural problems:

Given that oat drink is roughly 90% water, it makes little economic or environmental sense to ship it across the continent. The industry needs a solution that provides freshness, quality, and sustainability — on-site.


Our solution, The Oater Barista, is a compact “mini-factory” that produces fresh oat drink directly at the point of consumption.
 Using only our proprietary oat mix and tap water, operators can make barista-quality oat drink in seconds — with up to 90% less packaging and logistics and €2,000 yearly savings per site. We’re serving canteen operators, caterers, coffee chains, and independent cafés — making fresh, sustainable oat drink production as easy as pressing a button.

Our technology is globally unique and protected by two patents.
 The Oater Barista integrates enzymatic hydrolysis, fermentation, and homogenization in a closed system — ensuring barista-quality texture while minimizing CO₂ and energy use. The system is IoT-enabled, allowing predictive maintenance, remote monitoring, and over-the-air software updates.
This combination of proprietary IP, process control, and digital scalability creates a strong competitive moat across cafés, offices, and catering services.

We are redefining how plant-based milk is made and distributed.
 By localizing production, The Oater eliminates thousands of transport kilometers, saves packaging waste, and reduces costs — all while delivering a fresher, better-tasting oat drink.
 At scale, this model can transform the industry’s economics and environmental footprint.

Our model combines machine leasing and sales with recurring revenues from our proprietary oat mix. We currently serve cafés, catering companies such as Sodexo and Aramark, and corporate customers including Bayer, Hyundai, and ING Bank. In parallel, we’re collaborating with coffee chains on integrating Oater technology into a new, more efficient coffee bar setup.

We’re now scaling with leading caterers across Germany, including Sodexo, Aramark, and local partners, serving canteens with local, organic oats and a superior experience — at 90% less packaging and logistics. In 2026–27, we’ll expand to new European markets through additional caterer partnerships and pilot projects with coffee chains such as Costa Coffee, introducing a new, efficient coffee bar model that reduces both purchase cost and per-cup handling time.

At the same time, our next-generation machine increases capacity from 25 L/day to 60 L/day, unlocking higher throughput and new high-volume use cases.
The combination of improved tech, recurring revenues, and market traction positions us for strong, capital-efficient growth.


We’ve raised €2.5M to date, led by Rüdiger Koppelmann (Ex-CEO Sodastream) and EIT Food. We’re now raising a €3M Seed round to scale from 50 machines in 2025 to 200 in 2026, expand our coffee and catering partnerships, and industrialize our next-generation technology.
This will increase Customer Lifetime Value to >€30,000 per machine and projected sales to >€4 million in 2026.

We’re currently:

They can email me or get in touch via LinkedIn.