A vegan cheese shop is opening its doors in Brixton Village.
Despite the nation’s heavy interest in plant-based and vegan food over the last several years, La Fauxmagerie is the first all-vegan cheese shop to open in the UK.
The shop is founded by sisters Charlotte and Rachel Stevens.
“We’re so pleased to be bringing the first ever plant-based cheesemonger to the UK,” Charlotte told the Brixton Buzz website. “As someone who is conscious about making ethical dietary choices and also suffers with lactose intolerance, I’ve experienced first hand the difficulty in finding a dairy substitute that is adequate in both flavour and texture.”
The sisters say they’ll focus on small-batch and artisan UK brands and cheesemakers such as Kinda Co., which recently won £35,000 at the Bread & Jam Festival to help expand its vegan cheese range.
“Our aim with La Fauxmagerie is to bring the most delicious cheeses together in one place, so that those going dairy-free needn’t compromise on flavour nor variety,” Rachel says. “Historically, vegan cheeses have been seen as undesirable alternatives to their dairy counterparts; La Fauxmagerie aims to challenge that perception by stocking artisanal vegan cheeses that are truly delicious in their own right.”
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Interest in vegan cheese is on the uptick in the UK and across the globe. Pizza Hut kicked off 2019 and Veganuary with the launch of a vegan cheese jackfruit pizza in the UK. It tracked sales of the specialty pie through a “Vegan-O-Meter” on Twitter. If it sold more than 10,000 units within a month it promised customers to make the vegan item a permanent menu addition. It surpassed its goal within the first two weeks.
Cheese brands are going mainstream as well. Violife, the dairy-free Greek company recently launched its first television commercials touting the superpowers of its cheeses.
And dedicated vegan cheese shops, while not quite as prevalent as vegan butchers, have popped up in a few areas. Riverdel in Brooklyn, New York, is a vegan cheese and sandwich shop serving up locally made cheeses. And in Los Angeles, Vromage serves up house-made vegan cheeses including an aged blue cheese and dairy-free brie. The shop is even beloved by the Dutchess of Sussex, who featured the brand in her wedding album.
