With Brad Vanstone we dive into the alternative dairy solutions he is creating with Willicroft. His cheese and butter alternatives are very tasty. The butter is made from fermented soya beans and has the look and feel of real butter. He realised during his marketing career that something needs to change if his family farm (Willicroft) back in the UK wants to exist in the next decade. Being a vegetarian meant he had to reinvent his dairy heritage and decided to find alternatives to serve the mass market of dairy, in this case cheese and butter. His early recipe found already clients so he decided to take a leap of faith and turn into a real business.
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The activist Willicroft brand shows it is possible to scale and get onto the retail shelf in regular and biological retail channels. They have outsourced their fermentation technology to ensure scale so they have time to focus on the marketing and branding of Willicroft.
According to Brad we need to move fast away from the industrial farming system and by creating tasty vegan alternatives. Especially the butter is in demand with high-end chefs who value its close resembles to dairy butter. And yet it tastes and behaves slightly different. The key was his discovery that fermentation can produce a Butyric acid (meaning butter) having the properties similar to real butter.
The next challenges are expanding their white bean products and fermenting them also next to the soya beans. For the beans Brad expects in the future they will be able to let them come from regenerative farms with biological certification when they have a solid foundation with their current product line. They need need to make some profit before they move into the next market.
The space for fermented food is growing and Willicroft gradually expanding to meet demand.
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The Masters of Beautiful Achievements podcast series is where Alexander Prinsen explores natural science, innovation, systems thinking and leadership. In daily life he is an systemic innovation consulting at scopematters.com where he helps organizations accelerate to save costs, do good and operate within the planetary boundaries.