Oats On the Go

Oats, which have been a healthy breakfast staple for over a century, are being made into a delectable and innovative snack that can be enjoyed at any time of the day. 

Researchers from the ARS Western Regional Research Center in Albany, CA, partnered with Pop Oats LLC to develop Pop Oats, a roasted oat snack with bold-yet-smooth sweet and savory flavors. Pop Oats can be eaten straight out of the bag like chips or nuts. 

Pop Oats came together after Rodger Morris, founder and CEO of Pop Oats LLC and creator of Pop Oats, expressed interest to ARS scientists about making ready-to-eat, snackable oats. Morris, with an on-the-go family and lifestyle, saw that the beloved and nutritious grain had not successfully entered the snack food space as a standalone product. 

Using their expertise in food technology and the equipment in the ARS Western Regional Research Center’s pilot plant, ARS scientists worked with the Pop Oats team to bring Morris’s vision of a ready-to-eat whole oat snack to life. 

“Using each other’s strengths, we spent more than a year studying nearly two dozen product-and-process variables,” said ARS Food Technologist Don Olson. 

The team ultimately created a desirable, crunchy end-product from healthy whole oats using a now-patented roasting technology. Afterwards, they worked together to scale the technology for mass production.

“It was more than just inventing a new food product,” said Olson. “We worked hand-in-hand with the Pop Oats team on patenting the roasting technology and teaching them the production process so they can eventually scale up and make the product available to the American public.” 

Both Olson and Morris credited the unique partnership between the government and industry for making Pop Oats and hope to use their new technology to develop other healthy snack products in the future. 

“Our public/private partnership created a truly innovative process whose utility goes far beyond just oats,” said Morris. “We're now exploring ways to use our patented technology for future products of our own, as well as providing Pop Oats’ distinctive crunch to other food makers for use in their own new products.”

Pop Oats was launched in K-12 schools in northern California in 2024 and are now available in the retail market. Pop Oats was awarded the Prepared Foods’ 2025 Spirit of Innovation Award for Judge’s Selection/Most Innovative Product. – by Jessica Ryan, ARS Office of Communications