Vegan start-up takes on mozzarella, parmesan and brie cheeses
Goodfoods’ cheeses use zero factory farms, simple processes, and only nutritional benefits. They reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 99%, and use less water, land and energy, compared to their dairy-based counterparts.
FLORA SOUTHEY: ‘Israeli food tech start-up Goodfoods is developing dairy-free alternatives to classic cheeses based on cashew nuts. It is ‘dairy reinvented’, founder Michal Peleg tells FoodNavigator. Goodfoods is taking on the artisanal cheese market with plant-based alternatives to some of Europe’s – and the world’s – most popular cheeses. Using a cashew nut base, founder Michal Peleg is ‘reinventing’ mozzarella, parmesan, brie, and smoked gouda, she told FoodNavigator at FoodTech IL in Tel Aviv last month.
Conventional cheese is manufactured with heavy reliance on natural resources, the entrepreneur continued. Whereas Goodfoods’ products use “zero factory farms, simple processes, and only nutritional benefits”.
Indeed, Peleg said production of her cheeses reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 99%, and use less water, land and energy, compared to their dairy-based counterparts… The entrepreneur has been developing her offerings over the past year and has successfully piloted the products – under the brand name Micol’s – in vegan stores in Israel, where they have ‘sold out fast’…
All of Peleg’s recipes are based on cashews. She uses a fermentation process with heating, cooling, and steam pressure to achieve different textures in her offerings. Being minimally processed was important to the entrepreneur. “There are many [cheese] substitutes in the supermarkets today, but they are not as healthy as people think. So I decided to make my products as healthy as I can”…
Currently twice the price of industrial mozzarella, Goodfoods hopes to attract investment and scale in order to source cashews directly from Vietnam… Scaling up to increase quantity orders would also help reduce prices. “It’s all market supply and demand,” she told us. And scaling is certainly the objective: “I want it to be sold in Italy. I want to produce a version for the supermarket and a version for the deli, and I want it to be available for everyone”.’ SOURCE…
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