Vegan cheese that tastes as good as dairy

Norseland,  the UK’s leading speciality cheese company and creators  of award-winning Applewood® Vegan, have added Mexicana® Vegan to their range of vegan cheeses.

When Applewood ® Vegan launched,  the company challenged cheese-lovers to try its new product saying,  "it tastes so much like the real thing we bet you’ll never know the difference”.   Do you know, they are absolutely right?

Now, Mexicana®Vegan, free-from lactose, milk, eggs, soy, nuts, gluten and fortified with vitamin B12 and calcium and  made with gorgeous spices and jalapeño peppers,  is evey bit as delicious.  Whether as part of a (vegan) cheeseboard, on jacket potatoes or melted in a toastie, these two are tops - smooth texture,  balanced tang,  authentic aroma, it's all there.

Norseland also created the world's first, best-selling Cheese Advent Calendar and this Christmas are launching the Ilchester® Vegan Festive Selection,  featuring  three new brands;  the Ilchester® Melting Mature Cheddar Vegan, the Ilchester® Blue Vegan Cheeze (with blue spirulina vein) and  Mexicana® Vegan Spicy Cheeze.

Reflecting on the first anniversary of Applewood® Vegan, Lisa Harrison, senior brand manager for Applewood® Vegan, said: "It's been a great year for Applewood® Vegan. We had high hopes for the launch as In blind taste tests with vegans, conducted by Wirral Sensory Services, Applewood®
Vegan ticked all the boxes and scored significantly higher than other smoky cheese alternatives already on the market. So we knew that we had got the texture - it melts very well - and taste right, but the demand at the launch was incredible; 40% of Asda stores that stocked the cheeze sold out on the first day so the factory where the cheeze was being made had to put on extra staff to meet the demand. Other supermarket giants signed up to stock it including Waitrose, Tesco and Sainsbury's, which stocks the new Applewood® Vegan Slices. We are so proud of what has been achieved and to be a dairy company not shying away from the increasing demand for plant-based alternatives and making the bold decision to offer a vegan alternative for a well-known established cheese brand such as Applewood®."

​​Norseland has also launched a new website, called Flexi-Friday,  an initiative to help cheese lovers follow a flexitarian style diet. The website has easy-to-follow recipes using the company's vegan cheese as well as tips on how to follow a flexitarian-style  diet (those who eat mainly vegetarian food but occasionally eat meat and fish). 

About Applewood® Vegan 
•         Applewood® is the UK's first major cheese brand to launch a vegan cheese alternative.
•         Applewood® Vegan is made in an allergen free factory negating the risk of cross contamination from dairy products.
•         Key features of Applewood® Vegan is that it is coconut based, it has Applewood®'s unique smoked flavouring and is free from dairy, lactose, soya and gluten.
•         Ingredients include water, coconut oil, potato starch, modified maize starch, yeast extract, salt, natural flavouring, thickener (carrageenan), calcium phosphate, smoke flavouring, calcium chloride, colour (carotenes), paprika and vitamin B12.
•         Approved by the Vegan society.
•         Applewood® Vegan has won awards including Gold award at the FreeFrom Food Awards 2020; Best Vegan Cheeze in the 2019 PETA Awards, Best Vegan Cheeze in the 2019 Vegan Food UK Awards and Best Vegan Cheeze For Melting in the Vegan Cheeze Co. 2019 Awards.

Disclosure - I was sent a couple of packs of cheese to review  and can honestly say that there is no need for cheese lovers to hanker after 'proper' cheese any more, this is EVERY BIT as good as the real thing - try it and see!