Who likes a slice (or a few) of dreamy, vegan pizza packed with flavour and fillings? We certainly do! Gone are the days when vegans had to turn down pizza slices or settle for a pizza marinara - yay! We love delicious plant-based food and really appreciate brands that make it easier for vegans and omnivores alike to tuck into tasty veggie food. So, it’s no surprise that we are beyond excited about our pizza collaboration with the one and only One Planet Pizza, the UK’s first vegan frozen pizza brand. The fruit of our collaboration, the limited edition “Masala Tempehtation” pizza is made with our Moreish Masala Better Bites, masala sauce, green peppers, red onion, chickpeas, coriander and cheeze, and is utterly delicious. One Planet Pizza sure knows their stuff!
To celebrate this collaboration we wanted to do a lil’ interview with One Planet Pizza to learn more about their journey, hear their advice for purpose-driven entrepreneurs and get their ideas on what to pair the “Masala Tempehtation” pizza with for the ultimate night-in experience. Enjoy!
What has been the biggest challenge you’ve faced during your journey?
The biggest challenge for us has been perfecting our plant-based cheeze atop our pizza – no, really! Finding the perfect cheeze with the ultimate level of meltyness, pull-ability and flavour was such a hard task. When we founded One Planet Pizza, the plant-based cheeze market was not what it is today! We must have taste-tested over 20 different cheezes. Now, we use the brilliant Applewood Vegan cheeze for our pizzas and have never looked back.
What has been the most memorable highlight or highlights?
Great question! The most memorable highlights for us have to be the moments when we get to serve pizza enthusiasts around the UK at festivals and food events. There’s something so special about handing someone a hand-prepared slice of pizza and seeing all of the amazing reactions face-to-face – even better if they’re a meat-reducer or new to plant-based eating!
What are you most proud of and why?
We’re most proud of our eco credentials, for sure. All of our packaging is completely zero-to-landfill and is either recyclable or compostable. We also never use palm oil, source local ingredients wherever we can, and deliver our direct to customer orders using a carbon-neutral delivery service.
Can you share any interesting flavour combos that you’ve tried but that didn’t quite make the cut to production?
Ohhh there are many strange and wacky creations that never find their way out of the test kitchen. We’ve tried many grilled fruits on pizzas (apples don’t work!), chips on pizza, random baked bean concoctions and some interesting new ideas which we have brewing…
What rules of thumb do you always follow when coming up with new products?
The taste, mouthfeel and flavour are always the first aspects we consider, as we want to ensure the pizzas are as unbelievably plant-based as possible. We aim to explore new and exciting flavour combinations and aren’t afraid to test the limits of what you’d normally regard as “safe” to put on a pizza.
What would you pair the new Masala Tempehtation pizza with for the ultimate night-in experience?
We’d grab some seasoned fries, hot sauce and maybe a few traditional Indian beers.
What’s next for One Planet Pizza? (After our collaboration!)
We’ve got some very special new products in the kitchen which we are waiting to launch very soon! One of which will be going live in the next month and may or may not be festive themed…
Any words of advice for budding, purpose-driven entrepreneurs?
Our advice would be to develop a community around your product and invest time into evolving your relationships with these members. A solid and supportive community is incredibly important to any budding plant-based or ethical business and will support you through your growth and development as a brand.
What plant-based brands would you like to give a shout-out and why?
There are way too many to mention, but we absolutely love brands who are challenging the status-quo of plant-based living! Vevolution, Love Raw and yourselves of course are among a long list of inspiring brands helping push plants into the mainstream.
Anything else you’d like to share?
We’d like to say a huge thank you to you guys at Better Nature for helping us create such an epic pizza. Oh and, welcome to the future of pizza. And yes, it’s plant based.
Thank you so much One Planet Pizza for the amazing collaboration, this interview and for your lovely words! We <3 you.
P.S. If you’d like to tuck into the dreamy Masala Tempehtation pizza, head over to One Planet Pizza’s online shop. Remember, this is a very limited edition flavour so if you want a slice of this food heaven, you better move fast! Also, if you want to learn about the history of masala sauce, take a look at this blog post on Ethnic Spoon. However, there seems to be different versions of the origin story, you can read more here.