Waitrose Is Launching Vegan Baked Cheese This Christmas

Waitrose is set to launch new festive vegan products for the holidays. The British supermarket chain will debut vegan baked cheese and filo pastries just in time for Christmas.

The brand’s Breaded Vegan Baking Melts with Redcurrent Relish will feature a coconut-based, dairy-free cheese with a crispy breadcrumb exterior. The Festive Filo Swirls will be stuffed with Moroccan-style spiced vegetables with raisins and apricots.

This isn’t the first time Waitrose has released a vegan holiday range. The UK chain launched a similar Christmas line last year.

Items included two vegan pâtés. Flavors included a pumpkin seed, butternut, and pine nut with tomato and chili chutney and a chestnut and mushroom with red onion and balsamic chutney. The range also featured a Festive Ring of vegan cranberry and apple bangers with filled with fruit and parsley crumb. And for dessert, a vegan iced fruit cake.

Waitrose Gets More Vegan Options

Earlier this year, the supermarket chain revealed it would be increasing its vegan options.

“This January we are doubling our vegan and vegetarian range with some innovative new products,” Simona Cohen-Vida-Welsh, Waitrose & Partners Vegan Developer, said in a press release.

The launch featured 30 brand-name and private label plant-based items. New products included vegan fish and pizzas. “Our flavour-packed range offers both simple ingredients,” Cohen-Vida-Welsh said. “For customers to build their own dishes and comforting ready meals for a quick and easy dinner.”

Cohen-Vida-Welsh added: “Cutting down on meat, increasing your vegetable intake or going vegan has never been easier.”

Other new, plant-based options included pea ravioli, meat-free ham, seitan schnitzel, and moussaka. The chain also added vegan beef chunks, chicken samosas, katsu curry, and chicken slices to the range.

In April, Waitrose launched meatless chicken kebabs, pastrami, and ham sandwich slices by plant-based meat brand Squeaky Bean.

Last year, the company reported sales of its vegan ready-meals outpaced sales of its vegetarian products for the first time ever. Cohen-Vida-Welsh explained this was due to an increase in consumer demand.

“We saw veganism and plant-based diets making their way further into the mainstream,” says Cohen-Vida-Welsh. “And we see no signs of this slowing down.”