Toronto is Going Crazy Over This Vegan Company
Liz Gallagher and Tim Donnelly just wanted to make a good tasting dairy alternative cheese that didn’t have a long ingredient list. With this intention, Culcherd was started 4 years ago, and today it’s one of the hottest new foods in Toronto. It’s mouth watering instagram feed is bombarded with requests from people wanting to try it from all over the world. But for right now, this Toronto based startup is only available in Ontario, but has plans to grow across Canada.
The highly sought-after plant based cheeses and butters take five days to make from start to finish. Starting with lots of cashews and filtered water, Culcherd inoculates the nut mixture with a live probiotic culture allowing it to ferment for 24 hours. This is similar to the traditional artisan cheese making process. During the fermentation, enzymes are released and the cheesy flavour is developed along with lots of gut-friendly probiotics. Additional flavourings are added before it’s formed and aged. All the flavours are from real whole food ingredients. Nothing artificial here.
The result is probiotic rich, creamy, plant based cheeses and butters that contain over 1 billion probiotics per serving. The “It’s Not Butter” is a plant based butter that can be used in a 1:1 replacement for both savoury and sweet recipes. Liz, who is a trained chef, spends time trying to test the limits of It’s Not Butter. She’s made cinnamon buns, pastry dough and butter tarts successfully. The ultimate test is coming next, she just sent out a special order to a chef looking to make croissants with Culcherd’s It’s Not Butter.
Like us, Tim and Liz are passionate about sustainability, and their new revamped packaging shows that. The process took over a year and a half to create their 100% compostable packaging. The smallest of details were examined, even the safety seal on the boxes are compostable. This new packaging has also improved the shelf life of their products.
Fresh City is proud to offer six of Culcherd’s plant-based cheeses, including the classic Original, the Sharp & Smokey and the popular Everything Bagel flavour along with the original and garlic It’s Not Butter.
This weekend, try Culcherd’s products in a warm, cheesy, plant-based grilled cheese. Simply grill up the bread in Butterless Butter, throw in plenty of whichever Culcherd cheese you choose (our fav is Sharp + Smokey), cook until toasted and flip! Let us know if your try it! Share your photos and tag us @freshcityfarms @culcherd
