Where the almond milk is pasteurized at Kite Hill. And then there is the Ricotta, which is currently being used in vegan lasagnes and other items made in the Whole Foods prepared foods section, but can be sold by weight, and will be available in individual packages next year. The Soft-Ripened is aged for 15 days, and has a silky texture and fluffy rind, and while careful not to draw a comparison, Prevot said it’s most like a Camembert. The Soft Fresh Original and Soft Fresh Truffle Dill & Chive both fall into the soft fresh category, somewhat resembling farmer cheese. They make four products now, with a cream cheese hitting the market early next year. The almonds are not organic, to keep prices down, but in six months, they will have non-GMO as well as kosher certification. In July of 2012 they bought an empty warehouse, creating a cheese-making facility and began production in March of 2013.Īll of Kite Hill’s cheeses come from almonds grown in California’s San Joaquin Valley, over 20 varieties of almonds were tested until they got the results they were looking for. With Silicon Valley investors backing the project, Casino was convinced to move to California, and the team hired Jean Prevot, a Frenchman steeped in cheese-making, who worked most recently for Laura Chenel, to oversee building its facility in Hayward. Pat Brown, a Stanford biochemistry professor who had been experimenting with nut milks, would FedEx freshly-processed almond milk to Monte Casino, a chef and instructor at Le Cordon Bleu in Boston. With the help of some friends and colleagues, his experiment began. Ronnen, who is also a collaborating chef for the Wynn and Encore Hotels in Las Vegas, brought a vegan cheese there for a chef to try on his menu. Kite Hill was co-founded in 2012 by Tal Ronnen, a vegan chef who is chef/owner of L.A.’s Crossroads restaurant, and who gained notoriety for designing a cleanse for Oprah Winfrey. Most vegan cheeses now on the market are highly processed, with upwards of 15 ingredients, and many vegans avoid them because they don’t come close to the real thing. And while the two companies are competitors in that there is nothing else on the market that remotely comes close to what they’re offering, the products they make are so different from each other, that it seems both companies could be poised to be game-changers in terms of making non-dairy cheese products that are close enough to the real thing that even non-vegans will enjoy them. Between the Hayward-based Kite Hill and Fairfax-based Miyoko’s Kitchen, vegans and those who are lactose-intolerant now have numerous artisanal cheeses to choose from. Thanks to two Bay Area companies, giving up cheese has become that much easier. Many who want to eat lower on the food chain, and reduce their environmental impact, think “I’d go vegan, but I can’t give up cheese.” Photo: Alix Wallįor those considering a vegan diet, dairy is often the last hurdle, the most difficult to give up. Now this is a vegan cheese plate, as created by Miyoko’s Kitchen.
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