About us
Introduction
Origin of Vegan Cheese Review
Vegan Cheese Review is based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. We are consumers of vegan cheese, who prefer it to dairy cheese primarily for the health benefits. At the same time, we also value the environmental and ethical advantages of plant-based cheese compared to intensively farmed dairy.
For several years we enjoyed getting to know an ever-wider range of quality vegan cheeses and we thought it would only continue to rapidly get better and take over the dairy-based cheese market rather sooner than later.
Then in 2023, suddenly several of our favourite vegan cheeses disappeared from the local market. While we were still convinced of a bright future for vegan cheese, there appeared to be obstacles for the continued rise of vegan cheese. One often mentioned obstacle for the success of vegan cheese was that consumers did not know which products to choose from the many available options. Which vegan cheeses are most enjoyed by others, what do they taste like and which ones would suit the requirements you’re looking for? Those are the questions we try to answer.
Mission
Information and reviews to explore
Vegan Cheese Review aims to provide independent, high-quality and free reviews of vegan cheeses, to help consumers explore the available vegan cheese options on the market and find the products they’re looking for. By doing this, Vegan Cheese Review seeks to support the long-term market development of vegan cheese, providing the information which we hope will help promote the best quality products and convince more and more cheese lovers that vegan cheese can be, not only a healthy, but also tasty kind of cheese.
scope
What do we define as vegan cheese?
We use the definition from Wikipedia:1
“Vegan cheese is a category of non-dairy, plant-based cheese analogues. Vegan cheeses range from soft fresh cheeses to aged and cultured hard grateable cheeses like plant-based Parmesan. The defining characteristic of vegan cheese is the exclusion of all animal products.”
While a pretty clear definition, it may still at times lead to a grey area if a certain vegan product can be seen as a ‘cheese analogue’. In our approach, any vegan product that would be consumed in a manner similar to a dairy cheese could enter the scope of our reviews. So, in case of doubt we rather cast the net a bit wider, while that may mean we include products some would not consider vegan cheese.
reviews
Independence and approach
To ensure we can make independent reviews, we minimize potential conflicts of interest:
- We do not commercially make vegan cheese ourselves and do not have a financial interest in any particular brand or producer.
- We do not get paid or receive non-financial gifts or benefits to make the review of a product.
The reviews on Vegan Cheese Review are fully made from our perspective as avid consumers of vegan cheese. We purchase the cheeses we review through the channels available to the general consumer, like supermarkets or online stores. We are not professionals with in-depth knowledge of cheese-making or cheese-tasting. Instead, we reflect our personal experience as consumers in reviewing the cheese.
For dairy cheeses, one of the best opportunities to demonstrate their qualities is on a cheese platter with other fine cheeses, served in your favourite restaurant to finish off a delicious meal. This is the main setting we have in mind when making the review. How would we appreciate cheese in such a situation? Can the cheese be enjoyed with such close scrutiny, having no or few pairings to go with it on a cheese platter? The better it does in this situation, the rating will be higher. Next to the cheese platter perspective, there are other factors that determine the review outcome to a lesser extent, for example if we can see it do well on other intended uses, such as slices on bread and perfectly melting cheese to be used when cooking, or other characteristics of the cheese such as nutritional values.
Undoubtedly, there is a subjective preference each person has for the look, mouthfeel and taste of cheese, and so do we. Also, the point in time and circumstances of performing the review may impact the experience. To mitigate these, we try to make fair comparisons by systematically following the same approach to the review for each cheese, using objective measures and descriptions where possible, to minimise the impact of who is performing the review at what moment.
- Vegan Cheese – Wikipedia, 7 February 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegan_cheese ↩︎
