COVER STORY Mums have shed tears over discovering dairy-free cheese sauce they can use to make macaroni cheese for their allergic children, Angel Food founder and chief executive Alice Shopland says. When I was at intermediate school in the late 1970s, there was an intellectually disabled boy in our home economics class. He was the only boy in the class, because the others were all off doing ‘manly’ things like woodwork and metalwork. By the time my eldest son was at intermediate school in the late 1990s, all the kids attended cooking classes. I am lucky that my husband and two sons are all creative and competent cooks. Anecdotally though, food remains predominantly a female responsibility in families…and it is a huge responsibility. Meals must be prepared several times a day, often to a very tight budget, they must satisfy the likes/dislikes, nutritional requirements and allergies/intolerances of everyone in the family – and if you follow foodies on television or social media, then you may also exert pressure on yourself to have it look as though your staff includes a full-time food stylist. Add in the fact that most women feeding their families also have full-time jobs outside the home, it’s no surprise that services like My Food Bag are growing so rapidly. There’s a stark tension between the nurturing nature of food and the cut-throat realities of the FMCG business, which is dominated by small margins and huge corporations. I got into the food business because I wanted to make a difference. I have been vegan since 2004, and firmly believe that eating plants - not animals - is better for the environment, for humans and for other animals. Becoming vegan made me realise that food is a very emotive issue – I have often felt as though my choice to not eat animal products was perceived as harping criticism of others who continued to do so; other vegans have told me that their parents felt that all the love they’d delivered in the form of food was being rejected. On the positive side, I have seen women literally shed tears of joy upon discovering that with our dairy-free cheese sauce mix, their dairy-allergic child can eat macaroni cheese. When there are so many food choices available to most of us (even vegans!), it might seem odd that a simple pasta meal could be so significant – but it represents a tangible link with the Alice Shopland A U C K L A N D nurture we received in our own childhoods. Although I have no formal training in food technology, I had an excellent role model in my mother Sylvia. She grew up in the austerity of post-war working-class England, which might have doomed us to a very bland diet. Instead it brought out her natural curiosity and creativity (it probably helped that her mother was French, and her family were unusually open-minded and willing to travel). When all the other kids were having chops and spuds for dinner, my sister and I were enjoying the results of Mum attending Chinese cookery classes at night school, or soup made from the artichokes she grew in our vege garden. I am not saying that all of her experiments were worth repeating, but I reckon I assimilated her can-do attitude. And that’s what led me to get into the dairy-free cheese business in 2006. Attitudes in New Zealand were very different then, and many times I felt as though the very existence of Angel Food was treasonous. It took us more than two years, hundreds of recipe iterations, and dozens of potential ingredients trialled and discarded, but eventually we had a recipe for a dairy-free mozzarella alternative. Launching that product five years ago was a huge turning point: the first widely available vegan cheese made in New Zealand. I’m inspired by women who’ve started vegan food businesses internationally (Miyoko Schinner’s artisan cheese company in California, Mo Wyse from Melbourne eatery Smith & Daughters, Suzy Spoon’s Vegetarian Butcher in Sydney) and in Aotearoa New Zealand (Philippa Stephenson from Tart Bakery in Auckland, Kristine Bartley of Sweet Release bakery in Wellington, vegan delis run in Auckland by Alara Varnel and in Dunedin by Tanya Hickman, and Shama Lee’s brand-new Sunfed Meats business). I’m leery of gender generalisations – and I do feel a little guilty for ignoring many male-led vegan businesses for the sake of proving my point! But based on my own experience, I do wonder if women may be more willing to get into businesses that are ahead of their time, and will involve a lot of hard work for no immediate financial reward, simply because it is the right thing to do. It’s a recipe for burn-out – but when it works, it’s also a recipe for satisfaction. www.angelfood.co.nz C H I E F E X E C U T I V E : Angel Foods since 2006 B A C K G R O U N D : Journalist and freelance writer, BA from Auckland University, AUT Certificate of Journalism C O M PA N Y : Producing food free from dairy, eggs, meat and GE for vegans, vegetarians and allergy sufferers. 18 AUGUST 2017
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