Boermarke, a Netherlands-based company that fully transitioned to producing solely plant-based alternatives in 2023 after three decades in the animal dairy industry, reveals that it has been announced the Gold award winner at this year’s Plant-Based Excellence Awards from the Plant Based World Expo for its Vairy Plant-based Cheese that contains 5.7% protein.
The Vairy line with added protein, in Gouda, Cumin, and Mediterranean flavours, created with a fermentation process to replicate the taste and texture of cheese, was first announced in May of this year and described as a “breakthrough” for vegan cheese.
The judging panel rated the product highly with the comment: “Great aroma and texture and mild taste of cheese. Gentle lactic notes. One of the best I have tried. Branding is more aimed at bulk catering/food service but is clear and strong.”
Commercial Manager Klaasjan Joosten explained more about the company’s latest developments, active markets, and expansion strategy.
With the upcoming Plant Based World Expo in London on the horizon, could you share what innovations Boermarke plans to showcase and what attendees can look forward to seeing at your booth?
Following up the high-protein cheese at the PLMA in Amsterdam, we are now focusing more on local flavours. For example, for Germany a Würzig cheese, and for England a Cheddar cheese. The last one will be introduced at the Plant-based World Expo in London. In addition, for the English market, we will introduce our successful coconut yogurt line with new flavours that suit the English market.
Besides the cheese and yogurt categories, Boermarke is also active in ice cream. We will showcase the successful European flavours (cookie dough and salty caramel) and the basic vanilla flavour. You can meet our enthusiastic team at our booth and taste our different kinds of plant-based cheese, yogurt and ice cream (stand F29).
Boermarke introduced its high-protein plant-based cheese at this year’s PLMA. What were your key takeaways from this event, and how has the market received your new plant-based cheese since its launch?
Our high protein cheese has overall been excellently received. Based on some comments about the color we did develop it further. We now have a yellower cheese (so that it looks even more like dairy cheese), thanks to the comments at the PLMA. We also noticed that protein is getting more and more important for consumers. Besides, of course, taste and price. Our 5.7% protein cheese is lower in saturated fat than regular dairy and other plant-based cheese and has an excellent score on nutritional values.
Boermarke has a diverse assortment of alternative dairy products. Can you elaborate on your current product range and what you offer for private label production?
Besides our Vairy brand, which is now on the shelves in many European countries, we are also experts in private label. All products under the Vairy label, i.e. plant-based ice cream, yogurt and cheese, are also available under private label. We notice that there is still a lot of growth in this area because of the competition in the retail landscape which leads to lower consumer prices.
From your perspective, what are the emerging trends in plant-based product development? How is Boermarke adapting to these trends?
At 1, 2 and 3 is still taste, taste, and taste. After that, the price is still very important. But what we see as an emerging trend is the fact that the nutritional values and organoleptic characteristics should be the same as the animal version. A nice example is our Greek-style yogurt; it offers the same taste, exactly the same nutritional values (4% protein), and in an authentic packaging (1 KG bucket).
And we noticed that the product does not have to be based on one basic raw material, such as soy, oat, almond, etc. Our R&D team develops more and more new blends, taking the animal variant as a starting point. Lastly, a clean label is important, you need to have as few e-numbers as possible.
Could you provide an overview of the European markets where Boermarke’s products are currently available? How have these markets responded to your plant-based offerings?
Currently, we have our products on the shelves in 21 countries in Europe, including Germany, Italy, and France. With our ice cream (which has a long shelf life) we are also planning on going overseas. We are going to start in Korea very soon and hope our products will be as enthusiastically received there as in Europe.
Are you looking to form any partnerships or collaborations as part of your European market expansion strategy?
We are definitely open to this and we are also proactively looking for cooperations in any form. For instance, we are currently working with Vivera in the Dutch market towards food service. But we can also imagine these kinds of partnerships abroad.
