Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-63633479
As a teenager, Brad Vanstone used to help out on his grandparents’ dairy farm in Devon during the holidays.
But in an unexpected twist, decades later he now has quite a contrasting career running a vegan cheese-substitute business.
He set up the brand – Willicroft – in 2017, after switching to a plant-based diet, and struggling to give up cheese.
“I looked high and low in supermarkets for good replacements, but struggled to find any,” says Mr Vanstone, who like his business is based in Amsterdam.
Made from assorted white beans, such as haricot and cannellini, Willicroft now offers five products – “Young Dutch”, which imitates gouda; “Italian Aged”, which aims to be like parmesan; “Greek White”, a feta substitute, plus a fondue, and a sauce made for the dish macaroni cheese.
These are available to buy at numerous stockists across the Netherlands, and at the firm’s one store in central Amsterdam.
And overseas expansion is now continuing, with plans to launch in Germany before the end of this year. The firm’s products are already on sale in the UK at the seven branches of Amazon’s Whole Foods chain, and it is looking to add another UK supermarket to its roster.
However, Mr Vanstone says his plans to launch a wholesale business in the UK, to sell to other retailers, have been fraught with difficulties following Brexit.
“If we were to do it independently, to give you an example of how much harder it is, we used to be able to send samples to the UK for €20 ($21; £17.60), and it would take two to three days max [for them to get to the addressee],” he says.
“Now if we send samples it’s €200 minimum, and one in three won’t get there.”
Brexit issues aside, the sale of vegan substitute cheese is a global market continuing to see stellar levels of growth. Sales are predicted to rise to $7bn by 2030, up from $2.5bn in 2020, according to one report.
In a similar story to Mr Vanstone’s, Nivi Jasa co-founded I Am Nut Ok with his partner in 2017. He was inspired after moving to a plant-based diet and finding the then available vegan substitute cheeses “pretty terrible”.
“I said I’m not going to eat vegan cheese at all,” recalls Mr Jasa, who is a London-based Italian. “But my partner is from LA, which is 10 years ahead [in terms of food trends], and so she made some cashew cheese cream and I loved that.
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