Tasty Awards: Can Plant Ahead Capture the Biggest White Space in Vegan Cheese?

Plant Ahead’s Jeffrey Strah makes the case for why the company can transform the dairy-free mozzarella category with a product that’s “unlike anything” he’s seen in his 47 years in the cheese industry.

At the 2026 Tasty Awards by Nectar, the sensory insights initiative of Food System Innovations, 27 plant-based innovations won an honour for being on par with their dairy counterparts. Not a single one was a mozzarella alternative.

Cheese, in general, has long been one of the most difficult categories to crack for the plant-based industry, with early iterations being deemed too sticky, too plasticky, and just too far apart from the thing they were trying to replicate.

The initial consumer perceptions have remained largely intact over the years, despite some next-generation innovations that truly close the gap with dairy.

In Nectar’s taste tests, cheese emerged as the least-tasting non-dairy category. In particular, mozzarella had the largest ground to gain – only 25% of respondents were willing to purchase a vegan version of this Italian classic, compared to 67% who said they’d buy the conventional incumbent.

“The dairy-free average scored 4.0 versus 6.1 for the dairy benchmark – a 2.1 point gap – and even the category leader sits 1.4 points behind dairy, the largest leader-to-benchmark gap we measured,” Nectar director Caroline Cotto told Green Queen.

The top challenges concern texture and functionality. “Plant-based mozzarellas must melt, stretch, and brown, while also delivering a rich milky flavour. Dairy casein is uniquely suited to this,” explained Cotto.

“Many current plant-based formulations rely on starches and non-dairy fats that consistently fall short, she added. “The upside is that the white space for a true category leader is enormous.”

Vying for that white space is Plant Ahead, a subsidiary of Canada’s Wein Foods, which has introduced a fresh mozzarella that it promises will shift perceptions about the category.

“I’ve been in the cheese business for 47 years,” says Jeffrey Strah, who labels himself the “chief everything officer” at the company. “I’ve never seen an item that’s debuted like this, that just shocked people, like: ‘I cannot believe how good this item is.'”

How Plant Ahead’s vegan mozzarella sticks out

Strah is speaking to Green Queen ahead of the Tasty Awards ceremony in San Francisco, and he agrees with Cotto’s assessment of the mozzarella opportunity.

He points out that 75% of all dairy-free cheese in the foodservice space is mozzarella, and this is driven primarily by pizzerias. “We’ve only been about a year in growth now, in terms of launching last year. Our plant-based, dairy-free mozzarella has been received by the industry incredibly well,” he says.

“We’re in about 30 pizzerias so far, and we have a lot more coming. Our product has been put together to perform well: it doesn’t stick to your mouth, it’s very dairy-like, it’s smooth, it’s creamy, and if you bake it right, it tastes very much like regular mozzarella.”

Now, it’s expanding with a fresh non-dairy mozzarella, a format that has been available in Europe for several years now, though still very new to North America. “We’re the first company that has a fresh mozzarella, which we’re very pleased with. And it’s unlike anything. It’s amazing,” Strah says.

How does the formulation of hard, shreddable mozzarella differ from soft, ball-shaped versions? “It’s really about the science behind taking the right ingredients and blending them, mixing them, and putting together the right way to make them very palatable,” he notes.

This distinction is key, since most vegan mozzarella makers use the same core ingredients. “Many of our competitors stick to the inside of your mouth, or they don’t melt well, or they’re plasticky, or they look odd. Our product does none of that,” he says,

“Our product looks like real cheese. It melts like real cheese. It has a great flavour to it. It’s creamy, it stretches, and, most importantly, it does not stick to the inside of your mouth whatsoever. It’s a brilliant item. And that’s just the pizza cheese.”

Getting in bed with the pizza guys

Plant Ahead’s fresh mozzarella entered the market last fall, and its expansion is now being ramped up. In fact, it’s being debuted in the pizza industry at the International Pizza Expo in Las Vegas.

It’s already gaining interest from the pizza sector, which Strah describes as “amazing” and “very family-oriented”. “Three of the top organisations in the pizza world are the World Pizza Champions, the US Pizza Team, and Pizza University,” he notes. This includes 13-time World Pizza Champion Tony Gemignani and his Tony’s Pizza Napoletana chain.

“Those three organisations have selected Plant Ahead as the first cheese they’ve ever taken in a dairy-free partner role… That’s going to get us a lot of exposure.”

Nectar’s Taste of the Industry report noted how many dairy-free mozzarella products often swap out the protein with starch to try to nail the texture. But it’s the casein protein found in cow’s milk that gives mozzarella the stretch and melt it’s renowned for.

“The holy grail is being able to put protein in our cheese,” says Strah. He suggests that the company has tried many protein sources, but they impact the taste too strongly. If you put chickpeas in mozzarella – a relatively neutral-flavoured cheese – it’s going to taste like chickpeas.

“We haven’t been able to accomplish the taste and flavour,” he states. “Technically, mozzarella is very, very smooth. It’s doesn’t really have much of a flavour. That’s the whole point about it. We don’t want to spoil it with a protein. But we’re working on different proteins to get something in there.”

Has Plant Ahead looked at precision-fermented casein, which is bioidentical to the dairy protein? “We have,” responds Strah. “It’s expensive, and it’ll end up expensive in the customers’ and consumers’ amount. And unless they can scale it up, I don’t know if we’ll go down that path, because you’ll probably double what’s already doubled.

“Yes, it’s a good product, and I’ve tasted it, but it’s hard to scale up to a large area, especially with the category being relatively small compared to the rest of pizza.”

‘Our cheese doesn’t suck – I’ll take that every day’

Plant Ahead also sells cheese alternatives such as Parmesan, feta, blue cheese, Cheddar, pepper jack, Gouda, and cream cheese. With hands in more than just one cheese pie, what does Strah ascribe the industry’s struggles to?

“It comes down to one small thing,” he says. “The category was spoiled by way too many people getting into way too small a category, and not having a product that’s very good. If we, the category and everybody can make their product taste better, you will get more users, and you will keep more users.”

He continues: “People have gone away from the category – regardless of whatever they do it for, they’ve gone away because they’re going like: ‘This sucks. I’m not going to eat it again.’ Why would you eat something that sucks? You just don’t.”

Plant Ahead is looking to shift that perception. “We have something that doesn’t suck, which is great. That’s a compliment: “‘Hey, your cheese doesn’t suck,'” says Strah.

“I’ll take that every day, because it’s something that people will choose to eat. And if they eat it, they’ll eat it more, and they’ll tell their friends, and their friends will tell their friends, and we can build back that capital.”