Miyoko’s Discontinues Conventional Cheese Line Citing Its “Subpar” Nutritional Value

Acknowledging that “they were the wrong products,” Miyoko’s CEO Miyoko Schinner announced this week that the artisanal plant-based dairy brand has halted production of its cheddar and pepper jack slices, shreds and blocks, explaining that the line’s insubstantial nutritional value compromised the brand’s values and mission to create real nutrient-dense, vegan cheese.

“I just couldn’t keep them out in the marketplace anymore,” Schinner told NOSH. “What if someone had never tried our [artisanal] products and that was the first product they bought and they said, ‘this is not great,’ or ‘I don’t know what the hype was all about’… That’s their first impression of Miyoko’s and I just couldn’t allow that to continue. It’s not who we are.”

Part of the issue was that, when creating the line, Miyoko’s deviated from its signature method of utilizing old fashioned cheese-making processes, which includes natural fermentation, coagulation and aging, and applying it to plant-based dairy. Instead the slices and shred lines were created with a combination of oil and starches, a bit of fermented plant milk and protein powder “to boost the nutrition.”

Originally, the line was developed to help Miyoko’s tap into a wider audience with a lower-priced alternative in a conventional format. Following this experience, Schinner said she takes personal responsibility for not managing the product development process closely enough and conceded that utilizing the industry-wide cheesemaking approach was a mistake.

“I don’t think we’re ever going to be the low price leader,” she said. “That was one of the mistakes – we were trying to compete where everybody else was already competing. I don’t think we need to do that.”

The company’s team of food scientists had been working to reformulate since the line initially hit the shelves in 2020, aiming to increase the nutritional value and reintroduce a product that could hold its own against its dairy-based counterpart. However, the final result of that process did not yield sufficiently high quality cheese. After that “long, arduous process,” and with the support of her team, she made the decision to discontinue the line altogether.

“We took a look at ourselves and this is something we all agreed on,” Schinner said. “What is our brand? What do we stand for? Does this really fit our brand? And we had to say no. We’re not in it for the short term. I’m not in it to build yet another CPG company. I want to build a legacy brand. I’m in it for the long haul and I want our brand to stand for something.”

Even prior to its launch, she explained that the line underwent multiple iterations due to challenges in finding a cost-efficient and feasible production method. The line wasn’t one of the company’s best sellers, but it did perform “reasonably well,” according to Schinner and its discontinuation will cost the company “millions of dollars” in sales, although she would not disclose the exact sum.

Those sales don’t outweigh the long term benefits of creating true animal-free, nutritionally equivalent dairy alternatives, she said. Schinner said achieving this, rather than reaching the broadest set of consumers with a conventional option, is how the company will gain widespread household penetration.

“I don’t think we’re going to win over that 40% of the population that calls themselves flexitarians by selling products that are devoid of any nutrition, most people convert to a plant-based diet because they deem it as being healthier,” Schinner said. “I don’t care if slices and shreds are the biggest category. There’s a hundred different companies trying to compete for that space. I’m going to compete by creating products in an area nobody else can play in.”

Miyoko’s new cottage cheese product, set to debut at Natural Products Expo West 2022 next week, fits that profile as it is made with watermelon-seed milk and boasts 10 grams of protein. Schinner also noted that Miyoko’s will rollout a new branding strategy later this year that reaffirms its values and mission with a new website, packaging and a “three-word” catch phrase which she describes as carrying the effect of Nike’s “Just Do It.”

While its cheddar varieties may be phased out for now, Miyoko’s has not abandoned the idea altogether. Schinner continued to emphasize that the brand will not stray from its tried and true methods in the future, regardless of whether the product development process takes longer, or the end product carries a higher price tag.

“What I want to do is create a premium cheddar cheddar block the old fashioned way – the way that people used to buy cheddar – not as slices and shreds but as a real block of cheddar that you grated yourself,” Schinner concluded. “It’s going to be made with unique ingredients, unique seeds. It’s not going to be fortified with protein powder. It’s not going to be flavored. It’s going to be made with some very high protein milk that is made from natural seeds and legumes.”