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> Vegan Cheese Is Ready to Compete With Dairy. Is the World Ready to Eat It? I’m vegetarian and my partner is vegan - I’ve tried every vegan cheese on the shel

• pcthrowaway 5y ago
  Which brands have you tried? There's a wild diversity, and I suspect even with dairy cheeses you could try many kinds and think it's "missing" something (compared to another type of cheese, or even the same cheese from a different producer) For example, a (dairy) farmer's cheese is going to be completely different from a blue cheese, which is completely different from a sharp cheddar. Each of those is "missing" something compared to the others. Quality vegan cheeses often try to mimic characteristics of different kinds of dairy cheeses, and often come very close. For some kinds of cheese, people actually find them indistinguishable from the classic dairy versions; for example, if you tried 5 kinds of Blue Cheese, you'd likely find differences between them, and might not even be able to identify which one was vegan.
  • jjcon 5y ago
    > Which brands have you tried? More than I could possibly recall. Violife, chao, follow your heart, miyokos, daiya, parmellas, go veggie, kite hill, Trader Joe’s brand > For some kinds of cheese, people actually find them indistinguishable from the classic dairy versions Not a chance that I believe this. Maybe as a minor ingredient in a larger meal but certainly not as a main ingredient or on its own.
    • jchanimal 5y ago
      Agree. However a homemade “cashew cheese” (flavor from nutritional yeast, cayenne, and turmeric) can be yummier than cheese, if not totally realistic. Why the store brands can’t meet that quality I don’t know.
      • Spivak 5y ago
        Cashew cheese is so freaking food. It's got the perfect texture for nacho cheese dip and buffalo chicken dip. I honestly think it's better than dairy as the base for creamy soups.
      • Skunkleton 5y ago
        Cashew cheese is really good, but it isn't at all cheese. It can be used in a few applications where cheese is normally used, but not in the vast majority of them.
      • raffraffraff 5y ago
        Anything that tries to be like actual cheese fails miserably and trends to be mostly fat (coconut) and starch with flavour added. Nutritionally terrible, usually very low protein compared with real cheese. At least with cashew cheese you are eating (mostly) cashews with some flavour added. Still higher in fat and lower in protein than a low fat cheese, but at least it isn't just starch and fat. I use the liquid from sauerkraut or picked gherkins, garlic, onion powder and some salt, with the obligatory nutritional yeast. Just think of it as a nice pate.
        • froh 5y ago
          Yes, and the lack of protein is horrible. When you are vegetarian, you partially substitute meat with cheese --- no way with these vegan look-like-cheese-somewhat products. it's like 1.3g of protein per 100g (pseudo pasta 'cheese') vs 32g per 100g (Parmigiano-Reggiano) or 23g per 100g for Emmental cheese.
          • blacksmith_tb 5y ago
            Depends a little on how puritanical you are - Trader Joe's makes a decent 'Mozarella Style' shredded cheese that's mostly almonds, but has casein from real cheese (to make it melt) and some flavor from parmesan. 40g of protein in a bag, not terrible, but not vegan, just less-dairy.
    • asdf3243245q 5y ago
      I find Violife feta cheese to be more delicious than real feta for snacking, and can devour a pack in one sitting if I'm not paying attention. It's a bit different from real feta, in that it's a lot less briny. Thus in recipes like Greek salad real feta is still better.
      • cheese_goddess 5y ago
        Sorry if this sounds too grumpy, but if you're outside the EU then you don't know what "real feta" tastes like because you've only tasted imitation feta from cow's milk. Real feta is made in Greece with sheep and optionally up to 20% goat's milk and even a lot of the feta that is exported from Greece with the PDO symbol on it is awful and tasteless, like a block of watery, salted gypsum. So I can understand why you'd say you think Violife "feta cheese" is more delicious than "real" feta. Because that's not real feta, either.
    • jviotti 5y ago
      It might be a matter of taste and also certain kind of cheese might be harder to replicate. My partner and I also tried a lot of vegan brands, and while we disliked most (they were fine but not comparable), we both found the "original" Violife line to be really good.
    • cheese_goddess 5y ago
      Mrrweelll... to be fair, the kind of mass-produced cheese most people recognise as "cheese" these days is not that great either. And most commercial cheese basically tastes the same, no matter what it says it is. That's because it's made with the same industriallly produced lyophilised lactic acid bacteria cultures. The job of those cultures is to give cheese its tastes and flavours and since everyone buys the same brands from the same few makers, everybody's cheese tastes the same. What's worse, outside the EU you can find cheese with names like "feta", "parmesan", "mozzarella", "camembert" etc, that are nothing like the real deal (pet peeve: feta sold in the US is made with cow's milk). So most people who eat cheeses with these names outside the EU are eating substitutes of very inferior quality. From there, to eating plant-based "cheese" and feeling like you eat the real deal it's not such a big distance.
  • na85 5y ago
    >For some kinds of cheese, people actually find them indistinguishable from the classic dairy versions; for example, if you tried 5 kinds of Blue Cheese, you'd likely find differences between them, and might not even be able to identify which one was vegan. Maybe for some people, in the same way that smokers drink Tim Hortons because they can't taste the difference. But plenty of us can tell the difference and for us, vegan cheeses taste horrendous.
    • La1n 5y ago
      >Maybe for some people, in the same way that smokers drink Tim Hortons because they can't taste the difference. Or maybe it's more like beer, most don't like it the first time but after a while you can start appreciating it?
• dfgasdgsd 5y ago
  (partner is also vegan) - Miyoko Garlic Herb is the only one I've ever had that is "good" in my opinion. It's definitely not cheese, but as a picnic cheese/crackers situation I actually might like it more than a cheese version.
  • 8ytecoder 5y ago
    Miyako’s Mozzarella is good enough.
    • leadingthenet 5y ago
      > [...] is good enough There is no such thing when it comes to cheese. Cheese is love, cheese is life.
      • boston_clone 5y ago
        That’s just the morphine talking. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casomorphin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casomorphin
        • leadingthenet 5y ago
          I’m aware. The superiority of real cheese is demonstrated yet again!
  • jjcon 5y ago
    Totally agree on miyoko - the best tasting I’ve had and good in its own right kinda as it’s own thing
  • novok 5y ago
    If you removed the garlic and herbs would it taste any good?
    • PretzelPirate 5y ago
      Miyoko’s mozzarella is delicious, both cold and put on pizza. It doesn’t have any herbs added to it.
• smt88 5y ago
  I'm not a vegan and have enjoyed vegan cheese on breakfast sandwiches. It works for me when it's not the only flavor.
  • Spivak 5y ago
    Yeah I don't think any substitute foods will fare well when eaten on their own but they shine when they're part of a larger dish. And if you're only eating real cheese when its by itself like on a charcuterie board that's already a huge improvement!
• king_magic 5y ago
  Yep, they are all atrocious at this stage. Orders of magnitude worse than Beyond Beef* / Impossible* (as compared to actual meat). *just to be clear, I actually love both Beyond & Impossible's products. Extremely close to real meat IMO.
  • rorykoehler 5y ago
    I have eaten some that will easily surpass anything you will find in an American convenience store. Sure they aren’t for aficionados but that pass for accompaniment on wraps etc.
  • novok 5y ago
    I really don't get how people think impossible burger tastes like meat. It has the texture of a lentil patty with blood flavoring added.
    • Pfhreak 5y ago
      I mean, so do garbage fast food burgers, so maybe that's the bar they are comparing against?
      • novok 5y ago
        My personal example was a $15 restaurant where I tried out the impossible burger. Maybe it wasn't an actual 'impossible' burger or some early version.
        • eropple 5y ago
          Maybe give it another try, at least in some contexts. These days it's gotten into fast food, and IMO? I can tell the difference between an Impossible Whopper and a regular one, but both are about as good to me. I wouldn't miss it if the regular one went away.
        • AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
          I didn't care for the first iteration of the Impossible burger either. I thought it tasted just like a Morning Star Farms Grillers Prime, making it nothing special in veggie-burger land. However, it seems to have improved significantly, to the point that twice now I've thought they accidentally gave me real beef, had a meet-eating friend confirm, and after talking to the waiter and cook and taking a much closer look decided I was wrong. I love Beyond burgers too, but they are more distinct from real beef as far as my >10yr vegetarian tongue can tell.
• tartoran 5y ago
  > The answer is no, it’s not even close to ready. It might pass an initial taste test where you say, that’s not so bad, but then you pick up on all the things it’s missing. I tried these and agree. My wife is vegetarian and I started to rarely eat meat but cheeses are still a staple in our house. However, vegetarian burgers are ready for prime time. They are my new thing, if you didn't tell I'm eating vegetarian burgers I would swear I'm eating meat.
  • qudat 5y ago
    > However, vegetarian burgers are ready for prime time. Agreed. I eat meat but love veggie burgers.
  • sizzle 5y ago
    Impossible meat patty is ridiculously good. I wish I had this stuff growing up!
• redisman 5y ago
  I’m also all in on the fake veggie meats but have not had a good cheese experience even in vegan restaurants. It’s always some strange bean sludge/mat. Would love to be proven wrong!
• willcipriano 5y ago
  Wanted to make pizza with my two year old daughter a couple of weeks ago. Picked up some mozzarella at the store and when I went to use it noticed the well hidden plant logo and "plant based" text that was almost the same color as the packaging. Figured I'd give it a shot. It was inedible, completely ruined the pizza. My daughter took a bite and said "no, dad" I agreed and we threw it away and got a happy meal. I figure once everyone gets fooled once like I have it will stop selling.
  • da_big_ghey 5y ago
    i am not liking the way many of this is packaged. any other product and hackernews would be angry for the "deceptive packaging", but because the hackernews like this product, they are give it a freepass.
    • CoastalCoder 5y ago
      Are you sure there's really such a trend in HN discussions? I've never noticed it.
    • jethro_tell 5y ago
      have yet to read a comment that likes it :shrug:
      • mumblemumble 5y ago
        I'll chime in as liking it. Or at least, I like the ones that are made from fermented nuts. So, brands like Miyoko's and Treeline. I even make my own fake cheese in that genre at home sometimes. Others, like Daiya, I won't object to if someone else wants to put it on whatever we're cooking. I'm pretty lactose intolerant, so I can't speak to how it compares to dairy cheese; my personal take from the few times where I'll pop a Lactaid in order to participate in a pizza party is that, while Daiya fake mozzarella is meh, the stuff it's intended to mimic is even worse. I occasionally wonder if there is something to that casomorphin theory that the article mentions, and people who regularly consume dairy largely like it for approximately the same reason smokers like the taste of tobacco smoke. And then there are some brands, generally of more of a 1990s vintage, that are legitimately gross. Unfortunately, those seem to be the ones that are most commonly stocked in grocery stores, for Heaven knows what reason.
• chronicsunshine 5y ago
  In Minneapolis, MN the Herbivorous Butcher makes vegan cheeses that are better than normal cheese. Unfortunately they also are expensive.
• dheera 5y ago
  Non-vegan vegetarian here and I agree. The flip side of it is, the dairy cheeses next to the vegan cheeses don't pass my taste test either. What are they trying to imitate, shitty deli slices? I really want vegan cheese, but I want Parmiggiano-Regano, Brie, Smoked Gouda, Burrata, Pepper Jack, and Manchego, not deli slices. I don't even eat real dairy deli slices. Same thing for vegan yogurt. Every goddamn vegan yogurt brand makes the same 4 boring flavors: vanilla, strawberry, blueberry, and peach. The EXACT 4 FLAVORS I HATE. That's why I don't eat vegan yogurt. Why is there no pineapple upside-down cake, white chocolate raspberry, red date, and matcha? START with interesting flavors and I'll buy it in a heartbeat.
  • barbazoo 5y ago
    I recommend buying plain yoghurt and adding to it whatever you actually like. It's less waste usually, cheaper and exactly what you actually want to eat.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • morsch 5y ago
      Not sure that the "pineapple upside-down cake" flavoring is widely available.
  • jfengel 5y ago
    Do they not make plain vegan yogurt? That's how I eat cow's-milk yogurt: I get the plain stuff and add whatever jam/jelly I want to it. That doesn't have exotic flavors like matcha, and it's less convenient than a single-serve package, but it also means that I get to sweeten it to my taste. I've been thinking of trying some vegan yogurt (I'm a non-vegetarian who is drastically reducing my animal products and eats vegan more often than not). The plant-based milks have been getting pretty good and I had high hopes that they'd make a decent yogurt.
• derbOac 5y ago
  So my wife and I are vegetarian and I love certain vegan cheese, the naturally cultured ones where you essentially have a plant product that is cultured with cheese bacteria. My experience with this stuff is similar to a lot of things in vegetarian diet, which is that the problems come about when you start trying to create imitations of animal products. I do not want to suggest that people "just don't like vegan cheese because they're expecting animal milk cheese" but I do suspect that if people would stop thinking of certain vegan cheeses as substitutes for animal cheeses, they would feel really differently on average. I also don't want to suggest substitutes don't work to a certain extent in certain cases. Impossible burgers, for example, have really pushed a lot of limits in that regard. But I do think that a lot of times trying to imitate just fails miserably. I tend think of naturally cultured cashew cheese as pretty good. I just think of it as a cultured nut butter, which it is. I still love animal milk cheese, but I wouldn't just expect to substitute cashew butter for chevre, for example, nor would I expect to substitute cashew cheese for either one. Maybe the article is poorly framed in that regard. I guess I just see it as a fool's errand to try to approach vegan cheeses as imitations. Why can't it just be treated as a food in itself?
  • woofcat 5y ago
    >Why can't it just be treated as a food in itself? It can but if the objective is to reduce the world's, and specifically North America's appetite for animal products. You need to either aim to replace the current products or await a culture shift away from what is easy and cheap today.
    • throwaway5752 5y ago
      We can also wait (not so long, either) for increasingly severe heat waves and droughts to harm the viability of the dairy industry in the US. That way scarcity and cost will take care of the job in a less gentle way, but there were be a lot of other incidental problems to cope with.
      • captainredbeard 5y ago
        I bet it would just cause a change in production conditions which would be poor for the animals. It would be far better to find sustainable ways to use the livestock to sequester carbon (c.f. Allan Savory TED talk) and limit their environmental impact instead of giving up good eating.
• mssundaram 5y ago
  I'm tired of this laziness. I don't care about vegan cheese - I am vegan because it's better for me, the planet, and animals. Boohoo if I can't find some cheese that tastes exactly like cultured milk from a suffering animal.
  • distribot 5y ago
    +1 I've been vegan half my life and my recollection of cheese has mostly been replaced by the plant based alternatives. But I still think they've come light years from what we had back in '08. I think a key to being able to enjoy plant based facsimiles is to not judge it based it on how closely it approximates the dish, but rather how good it is on its own as a cousin.
  • pmoriarty 5y ago
    Unfortunately, the number of cheese eaters who'll be swayed by this sort of argument and who aren't already ethically vegan is probably close to zero.
  • ipaddr 5y ago
    Be careful thinking just going vegan is better for the planet. "The vegan diet is widely regarded to be better for the planet than those that include animal products, but not all plant-based foodstuffs have a small environmental footprint." https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200211-why-the-vegan-diet-is-not-always-green https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200211-why-the-vegan-di...
    • maccard 5y ago
      From your link, asparagus "the largest environmental footprint of any of the 56 vegetables they looked at, including its land use and water use", with 5.3kg of CO2 per kg of Asparagus. According to [0], "The average footprint of beef, excluding methane, is 36 kilograms of CO2eq per kilogram" - so even the worst vegetable imported from the farthest part of the world is 10x better per kg than beef. Also, I think that article you've shared is pretty clear that going vegan is better, it's just not 0 cost to the planet. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/carbon-footprint-food-methane https://ourworldindata.org/carbon-footprint-food-methane [1] https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local
• throwaway5752 5y ago
  Great, but for lots of people that are lactose intolerant or allergic, it can be good enough. Some are better than others. I am not fond of Daiya, and prefer Violife. You also want to use less of it, and choose or modify recipes accordingly. Most of the grocery store available ones are more appropriate for ingredient substitution. Cultured products like Rind or Reine that are more appropriate for eating on their own are less available. In general, they are not cheese and it's not best to approach them as cheese as you would use dairy cheese.
• jandrese 5y ago
  I tried a sample of Vegan Cheese once and it immediately brought to mind Arthur Dent trying to get Tea out of the Nutrimatic. It was something almost but not quite completely unlike cheese. It made me wonder if the person who invented it had ever tasted cheese before or had just read about it in a book or something. If it had been something I bought from the store I might have thought it just had a short shelf life, but this was a sample from the vendor at a trade show. I tried it on the spot. Presumably it was as good as it was going to get. Also, that vendor was a complete jerk and set up their booth as far away from the water fountains as possible, so I was forced to hold that horrendous not-cheese taste in my mouth for several minutes while I rushed across the floor.
• goseeastarwar 5y ago
  We suspected my 2 y/o son had a dairy allergy, so we started buying pizzas with vegan cheese to see if that relieved any of his symptoms. I thought the flavor was horrid, but my son happily devoured the pizza. Perhaps the best short-term solution is to stop trying to convince people these products are direct replacements. Maybe school lunches for kids that don’t know any better? I have no doubt it’s only a matter of time these companies develop vegan food on par with their meat counterparts, but we need to stop acting like they’ve unlocked the secret formula.
• armoredkitten 5y ago
  I find the meltiness is really what kills it for me, in most cases. If you're wanting something to add to a charcuterie board or to put out with your appetizers, there are a lot of great cashew-based cheeses that do a pretty good job at mimicking softer cheeses. They're a bit pricey, but probably close to the price you'd spend on a quality dairy cheese. But once you start trying to melt vegan cheese...things get a little wonky. The consistency is just still not there, and yes, sometimes the aftertaste is pretty bad. I've found some that are bearable, but for the most part....I've just embraced cuisines that don't rely on cheese. Maybe some day we'll crack that (hazel?)nut, but we're still not there.
  • qudat 5y ago
    > If you're wanting something to add to a charcuterie board or to put out with your appetizers, there are a lot of great cashew-based cheeses that do a pretty good job at mimicking softer cheeses. Agreed! They are different but equally delicious.
• sarsway 5y ago
  Not a fan of the substitutes either. Vegan meat is okay-ish, but it's obviously not meat and it doesn't have animal fats so it's never gonna be meat really. Also your just fooling your sense of taste, it will adjust eventually, and it seems the more fake meat you eat, the less tasty it becomes. I wish instead of pushing all these fake meat/dairy, we'd get a real vegetarian/vegan cuisine, like Indian/Oriental cooking, complex meals with lots of natural ingredients and spices, and have that become prevalent, as fast food, at the gas station and so on.
• steviedotboston 5y ago
  I bet a huge percentage of vegan cheese sales are first time customers giving it a try. That will drop off real fast.
• nerdponx 5y ago
  Vegan cheese is junk food. When you bake it into mac & cheese or melt it on a hamburger it does a great job. When you want to actually enjoy some cheese it's not even close to equivalent. It also has approximately zero nutritional value, although the nut-based cheeses I guess have some fat and protein. It's not really meant for regular people to enjoy. It's meant for vegans, people with dairy allergies, and other people can't or won't eat cheese to have the ability to enjoy the memory and suggestion of cheese. I personally am very very deeply grateful for the existence and excellence of Daiya in providing me with a melty cheese-like food product that reminds me enough of real cheese that I can have fun eating it. But I'm not about to suggest that vegan cheese is and equivalent for real cheese made of milk from a cow, goat, sheep, etc. It's a substitute. It's like Impossible meat. Yes, it makes a good burger, but you aren't going to get an Impossible Steak any time soon, and no it doesn't really taste like beef. It's still just chunks of soy protein (and it sits in your stomach the way you'd expect chunks of soy protein to sit).
  • boston_clone 5y ago
    How do you define junk food? Most animal-based products are more “junky” than vegan alternatives. No vegan meat substitute will have cholesterol, for instance. As for nutritional value, there are certainly good fats and carbs in those products. Absent some protein, sure, but to say they have no nutritional value is disingenuous.
• auiya 5y ago
  >I’m not saying it’s all terrible I'll say it then - it's all terrible. There's so many great vegan foods out there, fake cheese is not one of them.
• octopoc 5y ago
  Yep I eat vegan 80% of the time and I have to agree. For some reason, delicious fake meat is a lot easier to make than delicious fake cheese.
• RacfeelBudkind 5y ago
  > Sometimes the aftertaste is terrible, sometimes the texture or versatility. These are both true of dairy cheeses too.
  • octopoc 5y ago
    I think what they're saying is that, unlike real cheese, there's always something wrong with the taste of dairy-free cheese. FWIW my experience has been the same.
    • RacfeelBudkind 5y ago
      What I'm saying is there's always something wrong with the taste of dairy cheese. Although, it's subtle, and you get used to it if you eat it enough.
• thehappypm 5y ago
  On the contrary to most of these opinions, there's one vegan shredded cheese out there that makes delicious nachos. I can't recall the brand but it takes just like the gooey nacho cheese of my youth. Probably low-end nacho cheese didn't have any dairy to begin with :)
  • cheese_goddess 5y ago
    Nacho cheese is dairy. It's processed cheese so it's made with bits and pieces of real cheese mixed together, and with emulsifiers, colourings and flavourings to cover the fact that you're eating melted cheese scraps. Another reason for all the additivies is to make nacho cheese melt and run like a thin sauce, in a way that cheese doesn't. But with normal cheese you get other desirable organoleptic qualities that can't be reproduce with additives. For an example of the organoleptic qualities I'm talking about, watch this video: https://youtu.be/4CVzqJWkodA?t=834 https://youtu.be/4CVzqJWkodA?t=834 Look at how elastic the texture of that alpine style cheese is. Slices a few millimitres thick can be rolled into a cigar without breaking. That kind of texture cannot be reproduced artificially. And it can't be reproduced by "vegan" cheesemaking either. You need milk proteins for that and you need milk to be coagulated by rennet enzymes and the enzymes released by starter culture and ripening culture lactic acid bacteria while the cheese ages.
• fillskills 5y ago
  I am not vegan, but lactose intolerant. Vegan cheese has changed my life. Mind you that I was not lactose intolerant till about 18yrs. So I have certainly tried most versions of dairy cheese. I love them both. Sometimes Vegan cheese' flavor and texture is suited and in other cases I would have preferred regular cheese. The fail case happens for me when I try to compare these new vegan X with original X at every single detail instead of judging each of them on their own merit.
• ashes-of-sol 5y ago
  I think saying it's "not even close to ready" is way over the top. I've been vegan for two years and was a cheese lover prior to that, and I'm happy with the selection there is for doing things like mac and cheese, pizza, a slice on sandwiches etc. Is it a perfect stand in? No. Does it serve the purpose? Absolutely
• rsj_hn 5y ago
  Indeed good cheese is hard to find as much American cheese has a plasticky texture and bland taste. I've only had success with small dairy farms and stuff imported from Europe. Mount Tam is good.
• MisterBastahrd 5y ago
  I've had vegan yogurt that is better than the alternative. But cheese? Half the Miyoko's products taste like a finely ground nut paste mixed with mold and spoiled milk.
• senectus1 5y ago
  its not too bad provided you don't try to heat it. vegan cheese just doesnt have the same fat and sugar properties that normal cheese does.
• laplacesdemon48 5y ago
  Have either of you tried Pleese? I believe they're mostly selling to pizzerias now [1] and not supermarkets. They aren't able to scale up mass-production quickly because they use a different approach/ingredients - "proprietary blend of bean and potato proteins" [2]. I eat regular cheese and have tried several vegan brands, this seems pretty close to me. But I'm no cheese connoisseur. [1] https://www.pleesefoods.com/availabilty https://www.pleesefoods.com/availabilty [2] https://www.pleesefoods.com/products https://www.pleesefoods.com/products
• ryanmcbride 5y ago
  I agree, vegan and vegetarian food is always best when it's not trying to impersonate other food. The best you can hope for is "yeah I can eat this".
• foerbert 5y ago
  This does not sound like my experience at all. I'm also vegetarian and lean towards being vegan when it's easy enough. And I can't remember the last time I actually bought dairy cheese at the market that wasn't on a prepared item. I do have a bunch of vegan cheeses in my fridge though. In fact I have frequently remarked recently how amazing all the new cheeses are that I've tried. You will get best results picking the cheese to meet your need, rather than simply trying to do anything and everything with the first thing you pick up. But even if you can't be bothered these days, it's mostly alright. I'm not even that worried about trying to melt a new vegan cheese these days. I don't have much faith it'll be particularly great, but I'm not worried about ruining anything either. I don't foresee people running out to grab some vegan cheese to put on their real meat, but even with a truly perfect vegan cheese I think you'd have trouble getting major market penetration in that demographic.
• chrisandchris 5y ago
  I would say one who says vegan cheese might pass for an alternative to regular cheese has never tasted something that passes as actual cheese [in Switzerland/France]. A lot of cheese you can get on this world has IMHO nothing to do with cheese in terms of taste, texture and the knowledge required to create an actual good cheese.
• bperson 5y ago
  Have you tried Spero sunflower cream cheese? I would say it is less like a cream cheese exactly and more like a new food on its own (like hummus or guacamole, but neutral and pair-able in taste like cheese or butter). The Goat on some toast with a dollop of jam will kill any cheese pastry envy. It is very good, even special. Vegan food is best when it draws inspiration without exact imitation and Spero really created something unique. https://sperofoods.co/ https://sperofoods.co/