Sit through any TV commercial break at almost any time in Sweden today, and you’re bound to see one of several different ads, each with a different set of characters but all following the same script: promoting real milk.
The ads, released by the Swedish dairy conglomerate Arla, are the latest escalation in the vicious, so-called milk war that has been raging for five years between Sweden’s powerful dairy industry and the virally popular Swedish oat milk brand Oatly.
The war has played out on the national stage, in the form of lawsuits and attack ads, as a bitter struggle over market share and what it means to be Swedish in 2019.
