Welcome to the wonder of plant-based foods and beverages in 2022: New Zealand heritage-style lamb made of pea protein and highly refined vegan oils available grilled, roasted or baked at select Bay Area locations and (soon) to prepare and savor at home in delectable, simple recipes. Pair this with exquisite, nuanced wines made not from grapes aged with animal products but from local, organic, fermented flowers such as roses, lavender, marigolds, chrysanthemums and others. There’s more: Louisiana Creole-style soul cuisine is offered up at numerous East Bay restaurants, including one with tempting dishes such as Seitan Steaks with Gravy and Mash, Ain’t Gator Po’Boy sandwich, and house-made, double-deck and “cheesed” Pray 4 Me burgers with all the trimmings.
People curious about innovative plant-based foods arrive at the doorstep of vegan food and wine crafters for a variety of reasons and find themselves richly rewarded right here in the Bay Area. These examples, drawn, respectively, from San Francisco-based Black Sheep Foods, Oakland-based Free Range Flower Winery (with a tasting room soon to open in Livermore), and Souley Vegan, with locations in Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, open a small window into the marvelous tastes, textures and temptations of vegan food and beverages in contemporary times.
In some ways interrupted—after a surge of interest in the late 1980s and ’90s experts attribute to rising meat costs and beef embargoes, increased awareness about negative health conditions related to over-consumption of red meat, concerns about unsafe or unethical practices in the meat industry, or all these factors—veganism nevertheless fell off many consumers’ radar in the early 2000s. Stagnation in the sector might have continued, had not a generation of farm-to-table food innovators, environmental food scientists and people reaching back into the cuisine and culinary traditions of their ancestors been revitalized.
Sunny Kumar, a tech entrepreneur, and Ismael Montanez, a biochemist, co-founded Black Sheep Foods in 2019. The seeds of their ambition to pursue the production of plant-based, non-GMO, heritage breed meats and wild game can be found in their academic focus, work history and life stories. Kumar worked in the digital sphere while developing a groundbreaking magazine iPhone app at the Economist, then shifted to video advertising at Amazon, and finally, pivoted to Finless Foods and linked up with Montanez at the cell-based fish company that uses cellular agriculture to produce fish. While the two science minds were tracing original “fish flavor” all the way back to algae, they unexpectedly discovered independent entrepreneurial purpose. On the Black Sheep website, they say, “The offerings are created with the goal of capturing essential, authentic flavors (of heritage meat) while also being environmentally responsible. Taking the torch from pioneers in plant-based meat alternatives, Black Sheep Foods looks to catapult flavor to the next level.”
Kumar says his interest in operating at the crosshairs of innovation, science and environmentally conscious foods and food practices can be traced back to his childhood. “It stems from being brought up in a Hindu and Sikh household. The word sewa, which means selfless service in Sikh culture, is important. In our temples, for example, you cannot take anything for yourself. Someone has to give even a glass of water to you. And when something disastrous comes in, like a flood, the Sikhs come into a community to serve. When my father came to the United States, immigration law made it take longer for a spouse to come if they brought a child. (My mother) insisted I come with her, so for the first six years of my life, we stayed in India while my dad was here. For my mom, that was a huge sacrifice for service to me. That concept of service was instilled in me very early on.”
The primary ingredients in Black Sheep plant-based lamb are textured pea protein, high oleic sunflower oil, refined coconut oil and cocoa butter. Additional flavors, coloring and mouth-feel textures come from natural flavors and 2% or less of chickpea protein, potato starch, salt, beet powder, apple juice and pomegranate skin extract, among others. The company lists Delta as a client and partners with roughly 13 Bay Area restaurants primarily in San Francisco, but also including Jack’s Restaurant and Bar in Pleasant Hill.
“You have to release a new product like ours first through the restaurants because chefs love it and they’re creative,” says Kumar. “They know the flavors and how to work with them. For them, having our plant-based lamb means they can do something different than their competitors and provide a unique experience for customers. They get to work in their craft with a different kind of paint. Once the high water mark is established by chefs, we can reverse into selling straight to the American household.”
Ever aware of the metrics and customer satisfaction involved in running a successful company, Kumar says the Black Sheep labs, chemists, biologists and food safety experts “work backwards from the customer.” Improvements are sought and take precedence when they solve problems, such as addressing color change during the cooking process. “We’re now thinking about retail customers and putting ourselves in their shoes. Let’s say you bring Black Sheep kabobs home and cook them on medium high or don’t, and use some other level. The palatability at different temperatures has to be good, the texture has to congeal to the right level, the colors have to change according to customers’ expectations.”
Among the primary factors that build and keep dedicated customers for plant-based foods he suggests are taste, health, environment and animal welfare. Kumar rates the taste as number one, with the other three elements playing lesser, but vital roles in the narrative. “People do this for two reasons: either it makes you feel good mentally and physically, or it tastes really good. We’re just trying to get people to increase their cadence and metrics for plant-based food.”
Selecting lamb as their first plant-based product, Kumar and his team researched animals like cows, the meat from which is priced according to marbling. The least fatty cut is the cheapest; the rib eye with the most marbling is most expensive. “For lamb, duck and other heritage meats,” he says, “the marbling is less of a defining factor. It’s actually what’s inside of the fat, the compounds and their delivery that are super important. The flavors are detected in the nose, so with the coconut oil and the cocoa butter, we do some magic. They mimic lamb tallow. When you try our product, it has to coat the throat so you get nasal reception. You’re melting it in your throat, and if you can’t control that precisely, you’d be overwhelmed. We have to learn the delivery levels and make sure the fats are released properly.”
If it sounds laboriously scientific, it is. It took three years of R&D to fine-tune the lamb. Kumar says the company’s next product will likely be duck. After that, he predicts they will be “untethered to domestic all variety wild and heritage meats,” including boar, ostrich, bison or moose.
Across the Bay in Oakland, winemaker Aaliyah Nitoto has immersed herself and her practices in flower wine global history found in the Middle East, Asia, Europe and the United States. Free Range winery’s small-batch wines carry unique profiles and gain sophistication—and earn awards—due to her healthy appetite for history, and an extensive background in biology, herbalism, nutrition and health education.
Nitoto co-founded the company in 2018 with Sam Prestianni while continuing her career as a health and nutrition educator for nonprofit Healthy Black Families. She earned a B.A. in biology with an emphasis on human biochemistry from Mills College and certification in naturopathy and holistic nutrition from the Global College of Natural Health. An interest held since childhood in creatively using herbs, flowers and natural flavorings to make tinctures, poultices and beverages—she often tells the story of using Tabasco sauce in her first, undrinkable concoction made at age 10—compelled her to find an empty shipping container in Oakland and start up the winery. She discovered an instant sense of connection to the past and Black women worldwide who long ago made alcohol at home in their backyards, closets, kitchens and basements.
“Did you know that women were making wine in Mesopotamia, and women were the first beer makers? That’s crazy wonderful. Beer actually came from women in their big pointy hats with big spoons stirring a boiling brew—and they were seen as witches,” she says. “That’s why women making wine and beer is so (expletive) awesome. It’s badass. It’s what fuels me. There are hardships, but ultimately, I’m just blessed to be a person who’s able to do this. I hope there’ll be other women and people of color who want to make wine from flowers.”
The awareness of blessedness comes at the same time Nitoto is scaling up the business. Although recent awards and becoming part of the community of women winemakers and connecting with more women of color in the industry have built her confidence, she admits, growing the company is exhausting. “How do I expand so it helps us to get where we want to go? How can I move forward so I can leave my other jobs, pay myself, hire Sam, expand the part-time employees to full-time? It’s not as sexy as the creative part, but the important issues are how to streamline production. It’s been punk rock up until now. The only way to grow is to have more sophisticated, better software programs that streamline product inventory and track customers.”
Addressing the variable reasons customers seek out Free Range’s Rose Petal, RoseHybiscus, Marigold, “L” Lavender and other varietals that come, depending on the wine, with notes of sage, honeycomb, white chocolate, sandalwood, rhubarb, sour cherry and other natural flavors, Nitoto says, “Some people have allergies to grapes or other things put into wine made from grapes. Also, grapes are a crop that need pesticides to have the fruit go to fruition. People are looking for something else. They ask if it’s completely vegan, and we can reassure them. We don’t use animal products in our process. When I first got started, I said, ‘I’m gonna teach myself to make wine.’ Then I learned about the process and I said, ‘What? You take eggs and gelatin made from animals and use them?’ I didn’t know that, and a lot of people don’t even think of that. The reason I picked the process and the flower and other mostly drought-resistant materials we use is that they’re the best, that’s why I do it.”
Like Kumar, Nitoto says most people don’t know they’re missing taste qualities on their palette. “Wines made with flowers have beautiful and traditional wine flavors, and yet others are really freaky. You’re supposed to have a balance in your diet. Some people don’t like tartness or bitterness in food, but those flavors stimulate your brain and body in ways that are healthy.”
Moving forward, Nitoto says her background in science supports unlimited possibilities for creative expression and enables her to do something for the benefit of the world. “I can look at the equation for fermentation and easily understand it. It’s the foundation for doing anything we want. It makes me tongue-tied to try to describe the pride I feel to bring back the history of hundreds of women who did something in the world, this flower winemaking, something that has been pushed to the side. It’s important, and this is just one facet of women’s history.”
For more information, visit blacksheepfoods.com, freerangeflowerwinery.com and souleyvegan.com.
