Move Away Oat, Coconut & Nut Crowd - Here Comes The Creemi Chickpea!

Meet Creemi - a UK food start-up that makes delicious vegan products using chickpea protein as the base. The brand's unique chickpea based products are all delicious, healthy and vegan friendly.

We talked to Dave, one of the founders, about food innovation, the current food system, vegan lifestyle, sustainability, and the future. 

First things first, what is Creemi?

Creemi is a food brand created by a group of humans who want to remove animal ingredients from everyday foods. We wanted to challenge the norm and bring products that are identical in flavour, taste and texture without compromise. 

How is Creemi making the difference?

The main founder Mike has a long history of food manufacturing. Working for some of the biggest names in the world, he has seen first-hand the scale of the food system and all of its issues. After turning to a plant-based diet for a blood pressure issue and seeing life from the other side of the table, he wanted to help more people change. Our mission is to create everyday products that taste exactly like the real thing but without animal ingredients. We must make it easier for people to transition to making better choices and, in turn, helping our planet. Our team are all aligned on our principle of changing the food system for the better and clearly see the issues that lay within it. If we can help people with making better choices by providing the same experience with our products, then we are truly making a difference.

What inspired you to start an ethical business?

Our founders have all turned vegan in the last five years for health and environmental reasons, and we want to help make the transition to a plant-based lifestyle easier for the mainstream audience. Our individual journeys have inspired us to help people make better choices together. We cannot continue to operate a broken food system which causes such devastation to our planet.

What does it mean for you to be an ethical brand?

This is one of our key founding principles that we can provide a better food system. We don't have to cause the level of devastation to the planet to provide good food. Being an ethical mission-driven business gives us a real goal and a real way to effect change in the world.

What shall be done to fix our broken food system?

We strongly believe that in order to change our broken food system, we must remove the animal ingredients from products due to the scale of the industry. It has gotten out of control and is actually unnecessary to make great food. If we can help people make better choices, then we can effect a change on all levels for animals and the planet. 

Before moving to the details, describe your products in a few words.

Revolution - Fun - Choices - Creamy - Tasty - Satisfying.

Let's talk about Mayonnaise 2.0. Is it the most innovative mayo on the market?

Our initial product is Egg Free Mayonnaise. The mayo comes in 4 flavours: Original, Roasted Garlic, Jalapeño & Smokey Bacon. The product took 18 months to develop and tastes more like mayonnaise than mayonnaise. That's why we call it Mayonnaise 2.0. 

We have proven to the world that you don't need eggs to make great mayo. Instead, we use a chickpea protein to replicate the egg texture and taste.

What about chickpea-based chocolate, your second product? 

We all love chocolate, and we all used to love milk chocolate, so we made one but just left out the milk. Of course, our M!LK chocolate is made again using chickpeas, our secret sauce if you like. Our vegan chocolate is available in 3 flavours: M!LK, Salted Caramel and Orange. It was actually developed by someone called Terry, so we like to call it Terry's chocolate orange.

What is the superpower of your products? 

Our superhero power has to be the chickpea that powers each product we formulate and create. The power of the chickpea to replicate dairy is simply incredible. If Creemi had a superpower, it would have to be to have the loudest voice in the world so we could shout about all the Creemi goodness in our products and why we don't need to make food with animal ingredients. The more people that hear our message, the more we can make a change.

Why did you decide to experiment with chickpea?

Our superhero ingredient, the chickpea protein, provides the magic that helps us to develop amazing taste, texture and mouthfeel. Having a unique ingredient not widely used gives us a real opportunity to write our own script away from the Oat, Coconut & nut crowd. It's a whole new segment, and we are creating our own space.

What are your tips for launching a successful ethical brand?

Be genuine about your mission and never drift from those values for profit, it's all too easy to be a big company and make poor choices, but we have to create a world where you cannot hide poor choices. If you stick to your ethics and stick to your mission, your consumers will see that, and they will support you.

If you could pick a brand ambassador, who would it be and why?

I think I would have to pick Sir David Attenborough due to the enormous scale of his voice and opinion. He really is someone that is able to see the physical changes we have made to our planet through animal agriculture and farming, someone who is both genuine and sincere in his approach. I think he would be able to make a great link between making better choices and a better outcome for our world. But if I had to pick someone from a marketing perspective, then it would have to be a children's cartoon character, maybe someone like Peppa pig, because we need to stop the narrative of desensitising children to eating animals and reconnect them with where their food actually comes from. If we can reach a generation of children and educate them on a more sustainable food system, we can make a massive difference. 

What is Creemi's biggest dream?

To have our products accessible to the mainstream audience where we can effect real change and help as many people as possible to make better choices. We also have big plans to help our chosen charity, "The Retreat Animal Rescue" in Kent and support all the amazing work they do there. We would love to have our own sponsored section where we could provide homes to many more animals in need.

What is the next big thing for your brand? Are there any new chickpea products in the pipeline? 

Following on from Chocolate, I would have to say desserts. Nothing set in concrete yet, but we are playing around with some truly unique products at the moment. We are thinking: M!lky Creemi indulgent chocolate goodness… Watch this space! 

Creemi - We're watching you! :)