Wellness Is a Cult, and This Oat Brand Is the Leader

Oat Cult is the new kid on the block – and it promises overnight oats ‘without the sacrifice’.

Lately, gen z has been on a health kick. Maybe it’s because they don’t have money to drink and club, or maybe it’s because the wellness of their bodies is the only thing they feel like they can control, with the world economy and, well… the world, burning.

Along with zoomers, the rest of the world is potentially reevaluating its choices of beverages, breakfasts, and bedtimes too. So, as a result (which is not scientific and entirely my own assumption), people have been really digging overnight oats.

It’s not just porridge though – some form of 'gut-loving bacteria' is on every other label I look at. Kimchi, kefir, raw kale salads, chia pudding and supplements for days. This opens up a very fun new gap in adland – what does ‘healthy’ really look like?

Before, I would have probably said matte packaging, dull colours and kraft paper. But, gen z’s maximalist aesthetics might have rubbed off on their favourite holistic health companies. Using memorable characters, bubbly fonts, and screaming colours, vegan is no longer vanilla and wellness is bolder than it ever was.

This brings us back to Oat Cult – the overnight oats brand that nestled cosily into a niche that practically carved itself.

“It all starts with oats and cultures, literally,” says co-founder Ben da Costa. “We were playing around with overnight oats and live gut cultures, and suddenly, the word cult just clicked.”

Ben explains that the “delicious little corner of weirdness” that this wordplay provided was where he and his co-founders would prove that breakfast can feel like more than just beige fuel.

“It’s a personality, not just a pun,” he assures me. “A world where people can belong. And let’s be honest – cults are great creative territory.”

But are they? Oat Cult recently came out with their first ever campaign, by Insiders Studio, tapping into the unexpected and doing it brilliantly. However, what else is there to say about cults and oats, and how many more horror-inspired films can one brand make?

Ben says that the freedom comes from the idea – you just have to keep your mind open. “It doesn’t always have to be creepy forest rituals,” he affirms. “It can be about community. A shared obsession. Limited-edition drops, unexpected collabs, deeper storytelling. It’s got so much room to evolve – we’re not locked into the Wicker Man cosplay forever.”

And good. Because we want to see more.

Taking us back to the start, the co-founder explains that his team knew it wanted to build something, but didn’t know exactly what. The question to ask was ‘What’s the most boring aisle in the supermarket?’. The answer was obvious. But what about the product?

“People were already eating and loving overnight oats – just not buying them. So we saw a category full of dull copycat plastic pots, and thought: perfect. Let’s disrupt the dullest shelf in the shop.”

The result was a perfect blend of “uncanny British weirdness”, ‘League of Gentlemen’, ‘The Wicker Man’ and ‘Midsommar’ – a recipe to make you feel your breakfast before you eat it, as Ben puts it.

But for Oat Cult, porridge isn’t just a gimmick to make people pick it up once in the supermarket and never again. Ben says that the idea is to “make something that is genuinely good for your gut, while having fun.” “The category takes itself so seriously, it’s all whispers and wellness-speak. But just because you eat healthy doesn’t mean you need to be boring.”

The problem at the start was like with any self-starter and disruptive brand: cash. “We bootstrapped the whole thing,” says Ben. “I left school at 16, went to state school, didn’t have rich parents or an oil baron uncle. And no one was throwing us VC money.

“So, we’ve built this on tight cashflow – which has slowed us down at times, but also meant every creative decision really had to work. I think that pressure has made us sharper, braver, and more resourceful.”

This anxiety-fueled boldness is what gave way to surprisingly risky ideas. I suppose it goes one of two ways – you either go extremely safe, or try your best and hope to win. For Oat Cult, the latter worked, mainly because “creativity is [their] superpower,” and a superpower can never be mediocre.

“From the start, we were looking at what every other brand was doing – soft colours, safe fonts, muted tones – and said ‘No, thanks!’. We flipped the brief. We wanted to make something that looked and felt like nothing else on the shelf, because the product itself deserved better.”

Then, they lent into the industry they came from – creativity. LinkedIn, shares Ben, was the perfect place for their early traction. Afterwards, Instagram helped them build a visual world to match the promise. And lastly – coffee shops, “where people go to discover better things.” The brand visibility this three-step strategy gave them, and the volume, allowed Oat Cult the luxury of not chasing supermarket shelves from the jump.

One of the creative risks struck me immediately when I was looking at the packages of overnight porridge – they kind of look like condoms!

Ben laughs: “First of all, that would be a huge condom. I wouldn’t recommend using our oats for safe sex.

“We wanted a format that would break the mould. No one eats porridge or overnight oats on the move – it’s always at home or at work. So, we made something compact, recyclable, and weird enough to stand out.”

While the rest of the category spends time “copying each other,” Oat Cult are making us analogise sex with the (previously) least sexy breakfast. Genius, regardless of purpose.

When asked who Oat Cult is for, Ben says: “food snobs, design nerds, and breakfast rebels.” It’s for those who “scan ingredient lists and moodboards in the same breath.”
Outside the obvious ‘wellness’ bracket, regular folks love the idea too. According to Ben, it’s because his brand promises to care for people’s guts without pressuring them into clean eating and candle lighting.

The response so far has been overwhelming – an expected result when you’re about to wreak havoc on the oat market.

“We’re being lovebombed,” says Ben. “From all kinds of people, in places we didn’t ever expect. Sales are up every week, and we’ve done it all without performance media. Just word of mouth. The hunger for this brand, this voice, this type of breakfast, has really blown us away.”

Looking ahead, you can expect more flavours, more formats, and more “weird little surprises” from your new cult of choice. Ben reveals that the brand’s ideas are brewing far beyond oats, but they will only do it “if it fits the world.”

“We’re not here to launch dozens of stock keeping units. We’re here to keep building the cult, one strange spoonful at a time.” Get yours at a supermarket near you!