Four years ago, veteran vegan brand Follow Your Heart introduced a plant-based blue cheese crumbles product to the market to much acclaim (e.g., Veggie Grill uses this blue cheese on its steakhouse veggie burger). I picked some up at the Grocery Outlet to try out, even though I normally avoid products that come in plastic tubs. I’ll return to that later.

Well, as you may know, I’m always on the lookout for good vegan cheese, especially after researching the environmental footprints of various foods. (Dairy-based cheese is up there, second only to beef and lamb in some cases.) So I’m happy to report that Follow Your Heart’s vegan blue (bleu) cheese is a success. It has the distinctive blue cheese taste which develops along with the blue pigment as the cheese is cultured, usually by Penicillium roqueforti. It also has a nice creamy texture that I associate with good blue cheese.

A picture of Follow Your Heart bleu cheese, dairy-free crumbles in a plastic tub. Blue cheese

I don’t normally buy cheese in crumbles or shreds, preferring to buy a block that I can do whatever I want with. However, in this case it turned out to be kind of handy to have the cheese pre-crumbled as I tended to use it sparingly. Mixing in just a little bit was enough to liven up a bland vegan cheese in recipes such as grilled cheese. I’m glad I tried it, not just because it’s possibly the best plant-based blue cheeses that I’ve tried, but also because the company has an interesting history.

History of Follow Your Heart

Follow Your Heart started as a café and grocery store in Canoga Park, Los Angeles back in the early 1970s. Actually it started as a tiny juice bar with a counter and seven stools at the back of a store formerly known as Johnny Weissmuller’s American Natural Foods. Over time, Follow Your Heart became a pioneer in the vegetarian movement that was happening in 1970’s LA (among other places). By 1976, they bought a new spot (pictured below) – a former butcher shop that they converted into the Follow Your Heart vegetarian restaurant and store, which is still going strong today.

Follow Your Heart vegetarian restaurant - a menu from the 1970's is shown on the left. Top right is a photo of the outside signage in the 1970's. Bottom right is a black and white photo of the four founders sitting at the original cafe counter. — Left: An early menu from the Follow Your Heart vegetarian restaurant in 1970’s Los Angeles. Right: the original restaurant signs and founders (Source: LA Weekly). See here for a full history of the café and business.

Founder Bob Goldberg (on the left in the photo above) who became vegetarian in the early days of the venture later became CEO of Follow Your Heart as it expanded to become a vegan food company.

In the ’80s, though, their namesake consumer packaged goods line hadn’t yet been born, although the Vegenaise they were whipping up for their sandwiches was increasingly popular. People would come in and ask for some to take home; Bob and Paul would put it in a little cup to give to them. – LA Weekly

Goldberg had commented that he wanted to maintain control of the company, but did eventually sell Follow Your Heart to Danone in Feb 2021, following the death of his business partner, Paul Lewin. You can read about his thought process in this interview – he felt that, given the severity of climate change and other environmental threats, expansion of the plant-based business had become a priority.

Just a few months after the acquisition by Danone, in October 2021, Follow Your Heart launched three new products including this blue cheese.

Follow Your Heart vegan blue cheese – ingredients and nutrition facts

This plant-based cheese is not radically different to other brands in terms of ingredients or nutrition facts. I do appreciate that the main ingredient – coconut oil – is organic.

Ingredients: Filtered Water, Organic Coconut Oil, Modified Potato Starch, Sea Salt, Potato Starch, Natural Flavors, Less than 2% of: Potato Protein, Organic Vegan Cane Sugar, Calcium Phosphate, Lactic Acid, Caramel Color, Spirulina, Beta Carotene for Color.

A tub of Follow Your Heart vegan bleu cheese crumbles is shown on the left. On the right is the Nutrition Facts information panel. Per 28 g (1 oz.) serving, the vegan cheese provides 6 g fat, 6 g saturated fat, 350 mg sodium, and 4 g carbs. Icons denote that the cheese is non-GMO verified, gluten-free, soy-free, kosher and vegan.

Follow Your Heart – ownership by Danone

As mentioned, Follow Your Heart was acquired by Danone in 2021. Danone was most known for dairy products but has been pivoting to plant-based alternatives in recent years. My last post on the Green Stars Project covered the topic of certified Benefit Corporations (B Corps) and included Danone as an example.

My take is that a B Corp certification (and a decent B Corp impact score that rises over time) is a good indication of ethical progress but should be considered alongside what you are actually buying. Danone’s intensive dairy products would not receive a high Green Stars score, but the vegan brands generally do.

I’ve evaluated two other Danone brands, So Delicious and Silk, here on Ethical Bargains -– and all products scored higher than average on the Green Stars scale. Silk organic heavy cream – 4/5 Green Stars; Silk organic soy milk – 4.5 Green Stars; So Delicious vegan ice cream – 4/5 Green Stars; So Delicious vegan cheese – 3.5 Green Stars.

I appreciate that Danone is moving away from dairy and gradually becoming more and more plant-focused.

Ethical rating for Follow Your Heart vegan blue cheese

I’m rating Follow Your Heart vegan blue cheese 4/5 Green Stars for social and environmental impact, based on the following:

All Follow Your Heart products are vegan. Adopting a plant-based diet is the top thing you can do to mitigate climate change, food scarcity, animal cruelty, deforestation, and other environmental threats.
The main ingredient, coconut oil, is certified organic.
The manufacturing facility meets 50% of its electricity needs from more than 2000 on site solar panels.
Follow Your Heart was selected as the PETA’s 2015 Company of the Year.
Follow Your Heart’s new parent company Danone, is a certified B Corporation. Danone, however, has several ethical issues related to production of bottled water, dairy, and products that contain palm oil, such as infant formula.
The company’s facility has been certified Platinum-level Zero Waste, diverting over 98% of its waste through recycling, composting, reducing, and reusing programs.
Follow Your Heart offers free electric car charging for all employees.
Packaging: I’d rather avoid plastic tubs, which are challenging to recycle (especially polypropylene) due to insufficient market demand.
When we take a look at the environmental footprints of food, cheese from cow’s milk has very large footprints. So although the fact that the cheese is packaged in a plastic container is more obvious to the casual consumer, the fact that it’s vegan far outweighs this in terms of environmental impact. Still…
Room for improvement: Make lightweight PET tubs surrounded by a cardboard sleeve, like Treeline cheese, and/or make tubs from post-consumer recycled plastic. Or sell blocks of cheese in compostable wrap. On the upside, the plastic tub did keep the cheese fresh for the long time it took me to use it all and I actually did reuse the container to freeze some leftovers.

A container of Follow Your Heart vegan blue cheese is pictured. Underneath is a graphic showing an ethical rating of 4/5 Green Stars for social and environmental impact.

Summary scores (out of 5) for Follow Your Heart vegan blue cheese:

4.5 gold stars for quality and value.
4 Green Stars for social and environmental impact.

What do you think? Comment below with your rating if you like!

Join the Green Stars Project!

Check out sister site The Green Stars Project for a wider discussion on ethical consumption and social/environmental issues. Here are a couple of relevant articles:

Green Stars rating criteria

Does B Corp certified mean ethical?