Hello, Almond Friends: Adelaide’s Mornings Coffee Launches Its Own Almond Milk Brand

When barista Jason Barber opened Peel Street cafe Mornings at Malt & Juniper in 2018, he was dissatisfied with the existing almond-milk brands on the market. So he started making his own.

“I wasn’t a fan of a lot of the almond milks available at the time, as a lot of them had vegetable oils and gums and all sorts of different products to make it last longer. I also didn’t like the taste of them,” he says.

“After finding out SA has probably some of the best almonds in our hemisphere, I decided to give it a go.”

Barber’s almond milk has proved so popular that he’s increased production and launched his own brand, Almond Friends, which he’s beginning to sell direct to consumers and other Adelaide cafes (Gang Gang , Commute , Frankly Bagels and My Grandma Ben have already signed on).

His product has just four ingredients: almonds from the Riverland, organic dates, salt and water.

“Almond Friends contains 10 per cent almond, whereas most of the other commercial brands use around 2.5 per cent,” explains Barber. “The greater quantity of almond makes the milk taste lighter [as it’s not compensated with thickeners], and you can actually taste the almond flavour.” The result, he says, is a smoother taste with “no gummy texture”.

There’s been criticism over almond milk’s environmental footprint , which requires a significant amount of water (according to the Water Footprint Network, it takes around 4142 litres of water to produce a kilogram of almonds). But this pales in comparison to the heavy carbon footprint of dairy-milk production (according to the Guardian , a 2018 study at Oxford University revealed that producing a glass of dairy milk results in almost three times more greenhouse gas emissions than any plant-based milk).

For Barber’s part, he says he’s doing his best to limit Almond Friends’ environmental impact. He’s sourcing all ingredients as locally as possible, and he packages the milk in recyclable glass bottles, which he collects once they’re empty to refill them.

Almond Friends is currently available in one-litre bottles from Barber’s Mornings spin-off, Konbini , which is located in the Adelaide Railway Station. It’s also available in iced coffee and chocolate flavours sold in half-litre bottles.

Barber is also planning to release his own oat milk, which, he says, “tastes like brioche”, once oat season begins.

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