Vegan brands are moving beyond plain cashews to create plant-based cheeses with vegetables, from parsnips to cauliflower.
(original article here) DECEMBER 14, 2022, by NICOLE AXWORTHY
Vegan cheese has been around for a while. And although many companies rely on tried and true ingredients such as cashews and cultures to replicate the taste and texture of traditional dairy cheese, a few companies are now testing the waters with never-done-before ingredients—including vegetables.
Vegan cheese brand RIND is one of these companies. Next year, the company plans to launch vegan cheeses made with red bell peppers and parsnip. The expansion of its veggie cheese line follows the launch of its Carrot Cheese Slices earlier this year which won a SoFi Best New Product award for its innovation.
“When we first launched our carrot cheese, we wanted to create a unique line of cheeses featuring a significant amount of real vegetables,” RIND co-founder Dina DiCenso tells VegNews.
“We launched carrot cheese first because carrot is a popular and healthy vegetable. Several years ago, while developing and testing recipes, we discovered that parsnip worked very well for cheese,” DiCenso says. “And red bell pepper is not only a favorite vegetable of RIND’s staff, but [it] also lends itself to more savory cuisine.”
Like RIND’s Carrot Cheese Slices, both of the upcoming vegan cheese products use plant-based ingredients entirely sourced in the United States, and production will take place in the country, too, in an effort to further minimize the products’ carbon footprint.
Co-founded with vegan fashion designer and entrepreneur Joshua Katcher, RIND’s veggie cheeses can be found at restaurants and select retailers nationwide, as well as online at Vegan Essentials. RIND also plans to introduce new vegan cream cheese products with vegetables in the new year.