A PLANT-BASED PASSION

As the vegan revolution continues to gain traction, one innovative local artisan is serving up her own slice of plant-based passion. There’s just nothing quite like cheese.

Aspiring vegans are sure to find this the hardest animal product to relinquish – but what if there was an alternative that was so close to the real thing yet so much better for your health?

You can thank Vegan Deli Diva’s Sarah Page in advance for the vegan goodness you’re bound to obsess over once you come across their tasting board at the Riverside Collective. It’s not even clear upon tasting that the cheeses are, in fact, innovative plant-based creations – they’re the first of their kind to stand up to the real thing in both taste and texture, and much more so in nutritional and ethical value.

A French teacher by trade and a devoted caprine lover by heart, Sarah began making cheese in 2008 as a way to use up excess goats’ milk, and from there, began to teach others how to make cheese. Almost a decade passed, and a divorce meant uprooting from her North Canterbury lifestyle block, regrettably rehoming or fostering out her beloved goats, and moving into Christchurch. Sarah still wanted to make her own cheese for ethical reasons, so, drawing on her previous experience, she began to adapt the traditional process and apply it to firstly nuts, then vegetables. After several long-winded experimentations, the perfect recipe was formed – and coming to fruition closely behind was the beginning of a business that would entirely reinvent the traditional cheese wheel.

Kumara is the cheese’s unique ingredient, which is a godsend for those with allergies to nuts and soy – the primary ingredients of other plant-based cheeses. While the cheeses aren’t as high in protein as traditional cheese, they’re hugely beneficial from a nutritional perspective – containing high quantities of potassium, B vitamins and pre and probiotics (these increase with the age of the cheese). The ‘cheesy’ flavour comes from nutritional yeast – a form of deactivated yeast easy on the gut.

“All in all, the benefits of eating Diva products are pretty huge. Every ingredient is natural, beneficial to the body, and ethical – an added bonus. A number of ingredients are made locally or provided by local companies,” says Sarah.

A fridge at the Riverside Collective is plentifully stocked with a range of aged cheddars and ‘tasty’ cream cheeses, plus a selection of whipped tofu ricottas for those with a milder palate. Sarah has plans to launch camembert and blue vein plant cheeses in the near future.

Diva cheeses have garnered plenty of positive reactions from vegans and non-vegans alike, with sales skyrocketing and many customers returning to Riverside weekly to stock up on their plant cheese fix. Sarah says this reflects the exponential growth in people turning plant-based for environmental, ethical, and personal health reasons. “The feedback I’m getting is that Diva cheese takes the place of normal cheese for those who have turned or want to turn plant-based,” says Sarah.

What fuels Sarah’s passion for making plant cheese? Three things. “I’m passionate about animals, the environment, and giving people what they really love to eat. In that sense, Diva plant cheese covers all of those bases for me.”

vegandelidiva.com