Violife is a brand produced by Arivia S.A. from Greece, which in turn is part of Upfield from the Netherlands, self-described as “the largest plant-based consumer product company in the world“.1
These Original slices come in a transparent plastic tray with a cheesy yellow colour. The picture on the packaging shows oozy melted slices in a sandwich, so overall quite recognisable as cheese for a sandwich. At the same time, the product packaging and description on the product website keep it actually only at ‘slices’, with no mention of being a vegan cheese alternative or anything about what style of taste to expect.
After having tasted the Original slices, we thought smell and taste is more similar to Swiss style cheese than other typical slices categories like Gouda or Cheddar, so we classified the Violife Original slices in that category based on our own impression.
At the same time, we think the taste and mouthfeel is not that similar to the dairy cheese, something we find more generally with coconut oil and starch based vegan cheeses (potato starch in case of Violife2). The base for the cheese we understand to be therefore quite neutral and the taste depends on the additives. For the Original slices we thought the taste has some lactic notes like butter with a whiff of something that resembled butyric acid to us and it tasted a bit salty. Looking at the ingredients, it seems no coincidence we noted the saltiness, as it is one of the vegan cheeses with most salt in the ingredients we have reviewed so far (2.3g per 100g).
While we would not put this on a cheese platter by itself, we think it improves substantially and gains in cheesiness when melted in a grilled cheese sandwich, which is how we have quite regularly consumed it ourselves.
