Grocery Outlet Ethical Bargains

Parmela vegan cheese has been available (on discount) at the Grocery Outlet on a regular basis. However, I only got around to trying it out last week – there are so many new vegan cheeses to try and Parmela didn’t really look like it was going to stand out among them. But the joke’s on me, I guess, as I was completely surprised by it!

I bought Parmela vegan sharp cheddar, which has been aged for 60 days, at the Grocery Outlet for $3.99 for a pack of 10 slices, compared to a normal price of….? Actually I don’t know much it normally costs! I went to the Parmela Creamery store locator to find their products, and only Whole Foods stores are listed. But then on the Whole Foods website, Parmela Creamery products are no longer in stock. I did a few other searches (Google shopping, Instacart, etc.) and it looks like Parmela cheeses are only available at the Grocery Outlet and a few indie health food stores.

Now I’m wondering if Parmela Creamery is in the process of shutting down – the website is not up to date and the company’s social media has been silent for some time. This is a shame as I just discovered this cheese and really like it!

Review of Parmela sharp cheddar

I recently wrote about how most vegan cheeses need accompaniments as they are not yet good enough to eat on their own. There are exceptions in the realm of vegan soft cheese that can hold their own on a cracker or bread (Treeline, Nuts for Cheese, vegan Boursin, and a bunch of cream cheeses). However, I’ve rarely come across a vegan version of a hard cheese like cheddar that I’d happily eat straight up. So, given this, I’m excited to report that Parmela vegan cheddar is very close to that point (but also concerned that the company may be on the wane).

Parmela cheddar is good on fresh, crusty bread or a cracker, even at room temperature with no accompaniments. Then, when you add other ingredients such as butter, avocado, or tomato, it becomes pretty much indistinguishable from dairy-based cheddar. It melts very readily but melting isn’t necessary to make it palatable as it’s pleasantly creamy at room temperature – there’s no sign of the chalky or grainy textures that often plague vegan cheeses. I finished the pack pretty quickly and then bought more (can’t really think of a better endorsement than that) because I’ve been missing the taste of cheddar.   

The Parmela sharp cheddar has distinct flavors, closely resembling dairy-based cheddar, which I’ve never tasted in a vegan cheese. These flavors come from small molecules (produced during the butter and cheese culturing processes) that are sometimes used to create artificial butter flavor (e.g., for microwave popcorn). However, Parmela Creamery seems to have achieved them by culturing cashew milk and then aging the product. Here’s the blurb from Parmela Creamery on their process:

First, we select the most premium cashews from our farmers who use only traditional and environmentally friendly methods of cultivation. Then, we blend the cashews into creamy whole cashew milk.

Here’s where the magic happens: Our cheeses undergo our aging and culturing process where they develop their rich and creamy flavors. Developed from the real methods of master cheesemakers, the aging and culturing sets Parmela apart from all cheeses.

Parmela Creamery sharp cheddar slices – ingredients and nutrition

Ingredients: cashew milk (water, cashews), coconut oil, modified food starch, food starch, natural flavors, sea salt, yeast extract, konjac, potato protein, xanthan gum, annatto extract (for color), lactic acid, cultures.

There’s not much of interest, nutritionally, which is probably one of the reasons I didn’t pick these up to try earlier. However, the ingredients do suggest that some interesting processes are taking place – cashew milk, cultures, lactic acid, and konjac. Plus the other ingredient: time, in the form of 60 days of aging.

Ethical rating for Parmela Creamery cheddar

Here’s a summary of how I feel about the social and environmental impact of Parmela Creamery cheddar, which I’m rating 4 out of 5 Green Stars: 

• All Parmela Creamery products are vegan. Adopting a plant-based diet is the top thing you can do to mitigate climate change, deforestation, animal cruelty, and food scarcity.
• The ingredients are non-GMO. This matters to me mostly because non-GMO crops are less likely to be grown from seeds coated with neonics (and other pesticides) than genetically-modified crops.
• The company’s webpage on responsibility, although humorously titled The Grater Good, doesn’t contain any information on sustainability. Same for the Farm to Table page – it’s all very vague.
• Packaging is fairly minimal.

Summary scores (out of 5) for Parmela Creamery cheddar:

• 4.5 gold stars for quality and value.
• 4 green stars for social and environmental impact

If you have a different opinion, please share your rating!

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