New to Rowcliffe in 2022 Honestly Tasty continues to make waves in the alternative cheese market. With more consumers looking to dairy alternatives for a variety of reasons, it’s more important than ever to offer your consumers a choice.
The demand for plant-based alternatives has seen a rise in recent years - likely owing to an increase in people being more open to trying ‘planet-friendly’ options in a bid to reduce carbon emissions, as well as those affected by a rise in dairy intolerance. It’s been a significantly underserved portion of the market for quite some time but Honestly Tasty are on a mission to prove that cutting out, or down on, dairy doesn’t have to mean missing out!
They boast an award-winning selection of alternatives to dairy cheese that refuse to compromise on taste or texture, drawing on characteristics of dairy cheese in order to compete. Back when they launched, their founder, Mike Moore, worked hard to design a novel manufacturing method that draws on the processes of making dairy cheese: “the majority of our cheeses are hand-flipped daily during maturation. Our Blue has a distinctive and familiar bite thanks to Penicillium Roqueforti, and our Shamembert behaves as Camembert does in part because of the Penicillium Candidium that’s responsible for the rind.”
Their planet-focussed attitude led them to a journey which will see the team gradually remove nuts from all recipes whilst ensuring that the taste, texture and mouthfeel of the plant-based cheeses are improved - to bring you alternatives to dairy that are seriously (and honestly) tasty whilst kinder to the planet too. Removing nuts reduces the cost of ingredients (a saving reflected by the price, it's their most affordable cheese alternative to date) and importantly, it lessens the impact on the planet by lowering our carbon emissions. Nuts are a carbon intensive ingredient, and after months of work with My Emissions, Honestly Tasty were able to recognise the impact that removing them would have.
Now, we understand if you're sceptical (but hope too that you’re curious!) about how something like this can really compete with dairy cheese. And if you’re familiar with the process, you’ll no doubt know about casein. It plays a huge part in making dairy cheese, and is largely responsible for the key characteristics that a lot of vegan cheeses find tricky to emulate... It's where a starch structure comes in. Honestly Tasty wanted to recreate something hard to distinguish from the dairy cheeses they’re styled on... in the case of their first nut free cheese, a gournay style Garlic & Herb, a little crumbly but deliciously smooth to taste - it really is all about the starch content! They worked hard to achieve the perfect ratio of starch against fats - key to finding the right balance, and making sure that the emulsification binds together in a way that makes it possible to achieve different textures and mouthfeel at different temperatures e.g. whether it's straight out of the fridge and squished on a cracker, swirled into a sauce or crumbled over a meal.
Garlic & Herb is their newest cheese, and the first to boast a nut-free recipe. It joins their vegan brie (Bree) alongside award-winning alternatives to camembert (Shamembert) and Blue. With further recipes in development for release later this year!
With an introductory offer from Honestly Tasty on Garlic & Herb in June it’s a great time for you to try it.