Once Brown and Casino had figured out the basics, they hired Jean Prevot, formerly of Laura Chenel Chèvre. Here, he is pictured next to almond milk pasteurization tanks. Photo: Kate Williams Cheesemaker Jean Prevot designed Kite Hill’s cheese-making facility from the bottom up the building was previously home to a paper-making company.
“Our process follows a totally different perspective.”Ĭheesemaker Jean Prevot designed Kite Hill’s cheese-making facility from the bottom up the building was previously home to a paper-making company. “It is a subtle distinction, but it is the most important part of what we do,” said CEO Matthew Sade. The trio knew that they wanted to make cheese from nut milk just as it is made from dairy milk - this idea is a departure from most of the plant-based cheeses on the market today, which are made from nut paste. So he teamed up with Patrick Brown, a biochemist at Stanford, and Monte Casino, then a cheese-making instructor at Le Cordon Bleu in Boston, to rethink non-dairy cheese from the ground up. However he was unable to find any non-dairy cheese that he enjoyed eating. Los Angeles chef Tal Ronnen, who has cooked for the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres, had long been preparing plant-based meals. Today, Kite is selling its individual cheeses nationally through an exclusive contract with Whole Foods and is providing non-dairy cheese to the grocer’s deli counter.īut just a few years ago, Kite Hill was a pipe dream in a bio lab. But the company is poised for rapid expansion. The building still has a start-up feel there’s plenty of office space and not many employees, and the creamery has room to grow. The Kite Hill offices and production facilities are located in a nondescript office park less than a mile from the Bay. The Kite Hill artisanal cheese trio includes (from top): Soft Fresh Soft Fresh Truffle, Dill, and Chive and Soft Ripened. Nosh took a tour of Kite Hill’s creamery to learn more about what distinguishes its product, and, of course, to have a taste of the cheese itself. Kite Hill is currently producing a line of six cheeses, all made from almond milk. There’s a ricotta, two flavors of cream cheese (plain and chive), and three “artisanal” cheeses: two chèvre-like Soft Fresh cheeses (plain and truffle-dill-chive) and one Soft Ripened cheese with a soft bloomy rind, a la Brie or Camembert. (The other is the Fairfax-based Miyoko’s Kitchen.) Two pioneering non-dairy cheese companies are headquartered in the Bay Area, one of which, Kite Hill, is in Hayward. An abundance of non-dairy products have emerged that make use of far more flavorful ingredients like cashews, coconuts and almonds. It wasn’t exactly delicious, but it was dairy-free. At the cafeteria salad bar, there was a giant tub of Tofutti, ready for slathering over bagels and 9-grain toast. The last time I ate dairy-free cheese, I was in college and experimenting with a vegan diet. The “Soft Ripened,” pictured above, is coated in the same penicillium fungi used to make Brie and Camembert and aged for 10-15 days.
Photo: Kate Williams Kite Hill produces plant-based cheeses made from almond milk. Kite Hill produces plant-based cheeses made from almond milk.
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