If you want to make vegan cheese that actually tastes like cheese, the best approach is going to be to use something like Perfect Day's milk, which synthesizes

If you want to make vegan cheese that actually tastes like cheese, the best approach is going to be to use something like Perfect Day's milk, which synthesizes milk proteins using some sort of genetic engineering or other. This could, in the long-term, enable better cheese production than present techniques, since cheesemakers have greater control over the chemical composition of their dairy. That said, I think there's potential for plant-based cheese-like products to be delicious in their own right, without trying to perfectly mimic existing cheese products. I don't think the techniques are there yet, but that's to be expected, conventional cheesemaking has been honed by millennia of experience. As an appreciator of fine cheeses, I'm excited to try the delicious creations of food scientists working with cheese cultures and plant-derived materials. Unfortunately, the vegan cheeses on supermarket shelves are not aiming at the fine cheese market, and instead trying to compete with dirt-cheap sliced/shredded cheese, and that's not what interests me.