January 15

By Alice Shopland, founder of Angel Food

I’m marking Veganuary 2025 by publishing a blog post a day.

Over the years we’ve discontinued many products because, despite our best efforts, they simply couldn’t pay their way. And it was a painful process every time: each had its own set of fans who were bitterly disappointed and usually didn’t understand the commercial realities we were facing. And for us too it was sad to farewell products in which we’d invested so much love and other precious resources.

Marshmallow mix and marshmallows

Marshmallows (which are usually made with gelatine, so aren't vegetarian let alone vegan) aren't a huge deal in Aotearoa New Zealand, so making a vegan marshmallow mix was a rather strange path to go down. But marshmallows are a very big deal in North America, and most of the blogs and websites I followed about vegan food in the early days were based in the United States.

I was intrigued by the science of plant-based marshmallows and ordered some Emes brand “Kosher-Jel” vegan gelatine alternative from a US supplier. Regular gelatine is made by extracting collagen from the bones and skins of animals such as pigs or cattle. Although it was aimed at the kosher market, Kosher-Jel also appealed to vegetarians and vegans, with its claim: "Contains no meat, no dairy products." It was made, according to its ingredients list, from carrageenan (a seaweed extract), locust bean gum, and maltodextrin. It whipped up beautifully and made amazing marshmallows, and I felt very clever.

Animal-based gelatine gives a stretchy, bouncy marshmallow: plant-based options like carrageenan and agar tend to give a more brittle result. Some people more scientifically-minded than I got suspicious about the miraculous whipping properties of Emes Kosher-Jel and had it analysed, and learned that it did contain animal products, probably derived from fish. (Ironically ‘Emes’ apparently means ‘truth’ in Hebrew.) Undeterred, I returned to the kitchen and eventually came up with a delicious genuinely vegan marshmallow. It was fragile, time-consuming to make and had a very short shelf-life, so I hit upon the idea of selling it as a dry mix that people could use to make their own fresh vegan marshmallows at home. This product was a world-first, and I decided to package it in a cardboard sleeve like an envelope so it could be posted around the world at letter rates. It always felt a bit dodgy putting the little packages of white powder in the post but as far as I know, none was ever intercepted under suspicion of being illegal drugs or anthrax spores. I did briefly sell the marshmallows ready-made, but their high moisture levels meant they only lasted a week, which made distribution impractical. 

There were a few unforeseen problems with this product:

•          the low consumption rate of marshmallows in Aotearoa New Zealand

•          the low number of vegans and vegetarians in Aotearoa New Zealand

•          the even lower number of vegans and vegetarians wanting to make their own marshmallows

•          the inability of people to follow a recipe precisely

•          the low number of people owning an electric whisk/food mixer, a candy thermometer or even measuring spoons, all essential for this recipe

•          even if you had the requisite equipment and followed the recipe precisely it could be a little hit-and-miss.

Meringues

Messing around in the kitchen one day it occurred to me to try making meringues from the emulsifying ingredient that enabled my marshmallows to whip up. It worked, and I danced around the kitchen and then raced next door to share my excitement with Mark, who owned the organic store and was also vegan. I knew he didn’t have a sweet tooth and was much more interested in organic vegetables than anything that food science could create, but I had to share the excitement with someone. Predictably, he was unimpressed. I also took some of the meringues along to an animal rights protest to share and the reaction was mostly suspicious rather than joyful. Ah, well. For a short time, we sold the meringues ready-made (under the name Love Bites) and as a packaged mix for people to make at home, but again it was just too niche.

Fudge

I made some delicious fudge using coconut cream and had high hopes of a mainstream breakthrough – I did sell a small amount of it, but it was very difficult to make. Even the good batches weren’t as stable as dairy fudge, and it could easily dissolve into a sticky puddle in a humid Auckland summer.

Smokonut

One of the recipes I liked making with our hickory liquid smoke was smoky-flavoured coconut chips, which were delicious as a snack or as a crunchy salad topping. I would make the product to showcase our liquid smoke at tastings, and people would clamour to buy the bacon-y coconut chips. Aha, we thought, there’s a new product. Colin and I came up with the name Smokonut and he designed the label, featuring a hand-drawn coconut palm. Lots of people loved Smokonut, one notable exception being a guy at a tasting we did at Harvest Wholefoods in Grey Lynn: he said it “tasted like dog shit”. Again, despite our stubborn attempts, sales were too slow and we had to discontinue it.

Smoky Parmesan

This was a hit with most people who tasted it, but we never got enough traction with it – probably because there’s no such thing as smoky dairy parmesan so a dairy-free version is not something people are looking for.

Cheesy Sauce Mix

This was launched in a 60g pack but it was expensive because of the high packaging cost per gram combined with the high labour costs for small batches (including two labels hand-applied to each sachet). We relaunched in a 240g pack which was much better value for the customer and still made a decent margin for us, but a recommended retail price of more than $10 put potential new customers off trying it in the first place. And one pack lasted a long time, so repeat purchases didn’t happen very often. We also never managed to get sufficient distribution to make a marketing campaign worthwhile. We tried very hard with this product but eventually, we admitted defeat and discontinued it in 2021. I knew some people who relied on it as a pantry staple would be disappointed. But the low rate of sale was reinforced by the fact that the first “Why can’t I buy the sauce mix any more?” queries didn’t come in for about six months and were still dribbling in more than a year later.