Ilchester®, the UK’s number one blended and snacking cheese supplier, has a lot to celebrate after its first plant-based cheeze, the Ilchester Vegan Melting Mature won the Gold Award in the Dairy-Free Cheese Alternative category in the prestigious International Cheese Awards 2022 in Staffordshire.
Ilchester Vegan Melting Mature, which launched last summer and has been described as the “best vegan melting cheeze on the market” by The Independent, scooped the sought-after award at the cheese industry’s highly regarded awards ceremony.
The multi-award-winning Applewood® Vegan, the plant-based alternative to the UK’s number one smoky cheese, won the Silver Award Dairy Free Cheese Alternative in the ‘Cheese – any variety that contains savoury additives’ category. Applewood Vegan and Ilchester Vegan are both made by Norseland, the UK’s number one blended cheese supplier.
Talking about the awards’ success, Lisa Harrison, Marketing Manager for Ilchester and Applewood, said: “This is the first award for Ilchester’s first-ever plant-based cheeze and what an award to win! The International Cheese Awards 2022 are highly respected in the industry and across the world, and the competition is always very tough, so I am really thrilled that the Ilchester Vegan Melting Mature has won the Gold Award in the Dairy-Free Cheese Alternative category.
“The Melting Mature has been well received by vegans, vegetarians and flexitarians as it is known for sharing the same meltability factor as dairy cheddar cheeses, something that vegans have often said lacks in other plant-based cheeses. The ‘M Factor’ has been key to its success and I hope this is the first of many awards for this alternative to dairy cheddar.”
The Silver Dairy-Free Cheese Alternative Award is the ninth accolade for Applewood Vegan, which launched in October 2019 and was the UK’s first major cheese brand to launch a vegan cheese alternative.
Commenting on the ninth award success for Applewood Vegan, Harrison said: “Like our Ilchester Vegan cheese, meltability coupled with its smoky flavouring, has been the key to Applewood Vegan’s success and its popularity has allowed us to launch it in grated and slices format.
“Applewood Vegan is the second biggest vegan cheeze brand in the latest year and the fastest growing. The recognition from the International Cheese Awards is the icing on the cake for this much-loved plant-based cheeze.”
