Cathedral City launches plant-based soft cheese | News
Cathedral City has expanded its Our Plant Based range by releasing its first dairy-free soft cheese alternative.
The UK’s biggest selling cheese brand’s latest NPD is a Spring Onion and Cracked Black Pepper alternative to soft cheese, which also marks the brand’s first foray into the flavoured cheese alternative sub-category.
The “moreish” product (rsp: £2.50/ 170g) launched in Tesco on 29 May in 332 stores. It is made using a combination of coconut oil, soya protein concentrate and fava bean protein isolate.
“We think all cheese and cheese flavoured products should taste great,” said Neil Stewart, head of marketing for Cathedral City at Saputo Dairy UK. “Our cheese experts have created a new format and flavour profile which is enjoyable for those with dairy allergies or who want to reduce their dairy consumption.”
Vegan cheese
The brand added that plant-based alternatives to soft cheese alternatives were now the fourth most in-demand formats in the vegan cheese category after block, sliced and grated. As sales of such products continued to grow year-on-year, it said the NPD offered an “original and unique” soft cheese alternative to shoppers.
Cathedral City Our Plant Based first launched in September last year and is available in block, sliced and grated formats. It now had the dairy-free cheese alternative category’s third highest volume market share, Saputo said [IRI Total Dairy Free, 52 w/e 18 March 2023].
Total value sales for plant-based cheese alternatives are now worth £58.6m [Kantar, 52 w/e 16 April 2023], with products across the category bought by 8.3% of all UK households.
“Cathedral City’s reputation for great quality and value for money has refreshed the plant-based market allowing more shoppers to try plant-based alternatives to cheese,” Stewart added.
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