In the early years of vegan cheese brand Nuts for Cheese, founder Margaret Coons and her first employees each “had one very strong arm,” a “Brie bicep,” from using giant ladles to fill each triangular cheese mold. Ten years later, the London, Ontario, Canada-based brand produces over 600 wheels of cheese every day, and the muscles Coons works most are mental. The biggest challenge? Getting people to overcome past vegan cheese experiences that literally left a bad taste in their mouths. You might call it PTSBrie. In the past, “offerings in the plant-based cheese category, like shreds and slices, may not have had the most amazing ingredients or did not provide a premium organic experience,” she says diplomatically. Basically, they didn’t offer the cream-o-licious bliss that dairy cheese delivers. Nuts for Cheese does—and more and more consumers are discovering it. Led by the best-selling Un-Brie-Lievable flavor, the brand’s cheeses, cream cheeses and butters are sold in over 4,000 stores across Canada and the U.S. More than 30 team members work in the company’s 25,000-square-foot “Cheesequarters.” Margaret Coons' background as a chef shines through in flavors like umami-rich Black Garlic with porcini mushrooms and an activated charcoal rind. Margaret Coons' background as a chef shines through in flavors like umami-rich Black Garlic with porcini mushrooms and an activated charcoal rind. “Our focus is making organic products with super-clean ingredients that are really delicious, that not just vegans will enjoy, but that people who eat dairy will choose as an option as well,” says Coons. The cheeses are 100% dairy free and free of soy, gluten, GMOs, starches, gums and fillers. “We check a lot of boxes, but if it doesn’t taste great, it doesn’t matter,” she adds. The company has been on the cutting edge of flavor innovations in the category, like umami-rich Black Garlic with porcini mushrooms and an activated charcoal rind. Coons’ flavor mastery comes from years of work as a vegan chef. A vegetarian since age 12 and vegan since 19, who did not grow up in a vegetarian home, Coons started cooking for herself when she was young, experimenting with cheeses made from nuts. Her passion for plant-based cuisine and her creativity led her to professional kitchens. When the vegan cheeseboards she created for the restaurant where she worked began selling out, she decided to take a deeper dive into dairy-free fermentation and sell her cheeses at the local farmers market. After a long shift at the restaurant, she would go home and then return, schlepping a 50-pound semi-industrial vacuum sealer and heavy bags of nuts. While the front of the house was dark, Coons perfected her recipes under the restaurant’s bright kitchen lights through the wee hours of the night. When her cheeses repeatedly sold out at the local farmers market, she began exploring—and utilizing—local business resources, such as the London Small Business Centre and London Economic Development Corporation, to help her grow. “I’d never written a business plan or seen financial statements—I was an English major,” Coons says, laughing. Tradition plus innovation creates creaminess The vegan cheese market has changed drastically in the past 10 years. “I started the company because there really wasn’t a high-quality, delicious, organic option available, especially in Canada,” Coons says. “It’s come a long way.” The industry now tops $2.43 billion globally, with a projected CAGR of 12.6% through 2030, according to Grand View Research. While there are more options today, consumers crave better taste and texture: 73% of consumers said they wanted better plant-based cheeses, according to 2023 research from the Plant Based Foods Association. “Sometimes plant-based foods get a bit of a bad rap for being hyper-processed, not containing super-healthy ingredients and being more like a food-science product versus something you might make in your kitchen,” says Coons. “But our focus is on ingredients and quality.” To solve the creaminess conundrum that has long plagued nondairy cheeses, Coons uses traditional cheesemaking techniques and a fermenting culture that her team developed from sprouted organic quinoa. Researchers at nearby Western University tested the probiotics strains and found that many mirror what you would find in dairy cheese. “The cheeses have over 50 billion CFU of probiotics per serving,” she says. “They’re very much alive and great for gut health.” New dips debuted at Expo West Nuts for Cheese recently debuted a line of creamy, cashew-based dips. “There wasn’t a high-quality dip widely available on the market that wasn’t full of gums and starches and fillers,” Coons says. The new dips come in Roasted Red Pepper, Artichoke & Jalapeno, and Dill Pickle, the latter of which won a 2025 NEXTY Award for Best New Dips and Spreads. “It’s such a huge accolade for brands to get that recognition,” says Coons, about why she entered the competition. At her fifth Expo West, she hoped to “shine some light on the new product line” and get more totally-different-from-the-last-vegan-cheese-you-tried Nuts For Cheese products into more mouths. “We believe in the ability to spread positive, sustainable change through food and are on a mission to prove plant-based diets no longer cater to vegans alone,” Coons says. “They cater to everyone.”