AH Terra is a home brand of the Dutch supermarket chain Albert Heijn. As is typical of a home brand, the product is offered at an attractive price. While we normally focus much more on the product than the price, we thought it may be interesting to put in perspective to what extent this is indeed and economical choice. We purchased this tray of 200g for €1.75. Doing some quick math on our calculator, that is €8.75 per kilo. That is slightly above half the price of the €16.36 per kilo we paid for the Original slices by Violife that we bought the same day in the same store. Nine days later we bought the Mild slices and Intense gourmet slices of Simply V in a different supermarket, which cost us €19.93 per kilo. Lastly, the organic Vegan Deli Original and Intense both cost us €23.06, which we had bought four days earlier in our local organic supermarket.

From a product perspective, all these mentioned slices come in a transparent plastic trays, have cheesy yellow carotene colours and have the same main ingredients of coconut oil and starch. As this base is neutral tasting and there is no fermentation and ripening process, the taste originates from the added unidentified natural aromas. Compared to vegan cheeses where nuts are the main ingredient, the coconut oil results in relatively high amounts of saturated fat, while protein is very low. The taste itself of these slices nicely matches the name, having indeed a mild taste. We noted a bit of lactic, buttery creaminess, giving it some resemblance to young Gouda-style cheese.

Conclusion

We quite liked both its mild taste and its texture. These economically priced slices stand comparison with the better branded slices we have reviewed so far. Therefore, while it is not a vegan cheese we would add to a cheese platter, we would consider it a good option to prepare either a cold or grilled cheese sandwich, preferably combined with some other tasty toppings.