Violife is a brand produced by Arivia S.A. from Greece, which in turn is part of Flora Food Group (known until September 2024 as Upfield) from the Netherlands, self-described as “the largest plant-based consumer product company in the world“.1 Flora Food Group is owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) from the United States, one of the largest private equity firms in the world.2
As appears to be the case with all Violife products, the main ingredients are coconut oil, modified starch and starch. While unspecified what the starch is derived from on the packaging, it is likely potato starch, as the Violife website FAQ mention: “All Violife products contain potato starch (either native or modified).” 3, 4
30% of Cheddarton’s ingredients is coconut oil, leading to 27g per 100g of the cheese to be saturated fat. That comes in just below Le Rond, also by Violife, so far the vegan cheese with the highest relative amount of saturated fat we reviewed, at 28g per 100g of cheese.
While the fat content is below that of the cow-milk cheddar 48+ we compared it against (35g fat per 100g), the saturated fat is higher, 28g vs 22g. To complete the comparison: whereas there is 25g protein and 0.1g carbohydrates in the cow-milk cheddar, there is 0.2g protein and 16g carbohydrates in Cheddarton. So, principally it is switching animal fat & protein into plant fat & carbohydrates. Last point on the ingredients, salt is on the high side, at 2.5g, only second to the 2.7g of the Intense gourmet slices by Simply V in our 30-odd reviews so far.
When unpacking, we were initially surprised this cheddar-style cheese is not orange as we had in mind for a typical cheddar cheese. However, we soon learnt that cheddar also comes in this pale-yellow colour. As a quick aside: originally, in cow-milk cheese the yellow colour is due to beta-carotenes from the fresh grass the cow ate and absorbed. In a vegan cheese like this one, the beta-carotenes are added directly to the cheese. In cow-milk cheeses, colouring may also be added to keep the colour the same year-round, for example by adding annatto.5
As more often with Violife products, the smell is both buttery and cheesy, while the taste we found mostly salty and buttery, with some notes of earthy vegetable, primarily potato. It didn’t match the full, creamy taste, quite sweet and nutty, of the cow-milk cheddar we compared it to when tasting. On the positive side, this vegan cheese both melts and also grates very well as it is quite hard.
A note on the price: we bought it for was €3.00, which was a sale price given that it was approaching its ‘use by date’, the same date we made this review. The regular price advertised was €5.49.
Conclusion
We found the taste missed the full soft creaminess that makes cheddar appealing and thought it was saltier than cheddar. We have reviewed a number of Violife products by now, from camembert to emmental, feta and cheddar. In our view, while packaging and presentation is appealing, when tasting the Violife cheeses they unfortunately appear more similar to each other with a shared salty butteriness, than to the non-vegan cheese types they have been designed to be an alternative to.
