$5M in Early Demand for New Culture Mozzarella

We’re excited to share that we’ve secured $5M in early demand for our animal-free mozzarella, including from some of the most celebrated chefs and pizzerias in the industry. This extraordinary level of pre-launch interest reflects the eagerness of pizzerias and their customers to finally move past the era of goopy, pasty, plant-based cheese. By leapfrogging the plant-based options, New Culture is offering the pizza industry what it has long sought, and the industry response has been overwhelming.

Initial interest spans all corners of the pizza industry, from single-location independents to nationwide chains. Chefs have remarked on the versatility of the cheese as it performs consistently in wood-fired, gas and electric ovens between 550° and 900°. From artisanal California pizzas, to Neapolitan and New York classics, to thicker Detroit and grandma pies, demand for New Culture cheese cuts across the industry’s famously strong views. What have we learned from chefs along the way? Read on!

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We’re in the business of making the best animal-free cheese on the planet. So good that you wouldn’t know the cheese on your pizza was animal-free. So good that you’ll take another slice. Or two.

A major part of our process to make an unparalleled product is learning as much as we can from the chefs who will be putting our cheese on their menus. So when we have conversations with pizza chefs there’s an extraordinary amount of knowledge to absorb. Yet that knowledge doesn’t always have to do with cheese. In fact, more often than not the conversations start out only tangentially related to cheese and then eventually have everything to do with cheese.

Cheese Traits

Of course, as a cheese company we can’t get enough of cheese conversations. If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that there’s far more than meets the eye when it comes to the humble mozzarella on top of your favorite pizza. Pizzerias have very different mozzarella priorities. While stretch is likely the most iconic mozzarella characteristic, we’ve been surprised by how many pizzerias find it overrated. Some even say the focus on stretch is a distraction from the other qualities that are far more important for a great pizza.

One of those other qualities is so identifiably mozzarella that it can be overlooked: melt. Though melt and stretch are cousins, melt is what gives an even layer of cheese rather than lumps, patchiness, or residual strand shapes (which no one wants). As mozzarella melts, the discerning pizza eater also notices a concurrent spectacle underway, what’s called “oiling off.” Pizza wouldn’t be pizza without the sheen of grease on top, though there’s a limit to how greasy chefs want their pies. We have to hit that sweet spot with our mozzarella - enough grease to shine without puddling.

Ovens

For those of us whose pizza experiences are limited to ordering and eating pizza, it’s likely we have a blindspot in our understanding of how ingredients become pizzas. The pizza oven. At New Culture we’ve gotten a crash course on the options out there, how they differ, and what’s trending.

The wood-fired pizza oven is the icon. Used to make chewy Neapolitan pizzas at 900° and crispier pies at 550° (and everything in between), these ovens can take hours to heat up and require continual heat management (more wood, monitoring coals, etc.). Though like a manual car, the wood-fired appeal is real. Then there’s the electric and gas ovens. Some restaurants prefer a “deck” version: a deep box about a foot tall with a hot slab inside and glass door on the front. These can come with multiple stacked boxes for more capacity. Others prefer conveyor belt ovens, where the pizzas slide through on rotating metal racks. For deck and conveyor ovens, temperature is typically controlled electronically. If you can’t make up your mind between wood-fired, electric or gas (or coal, for the New Yorkers), there are also combination ovens that allow for multiple heat sources.

The most popular oven these days? Deck ovens. Control, consistency, ease of use. Does our cheese have a preference? We’ll let you be the judge.

Handling

The business model of each pizzeria determines how ingredients are prepared and handled. For higher volume locations, there might not be the time (a.k.a. budget) to shred cheese or make the sauce by hand. Others may buy blocks of cheese and then chunk the cheese right onto the pizza before it goes into the oven. Some pizzerias, especially those making thicker crust pies, may “par bake” the dough ahead of time to cut down on prep and final bake times. It is essential that our cheese has the versatility to work for all of the above and more.

As a result, we’ve been thrilled to receive such positive feedback about how well our cheese grates and chunks. That’s a small detail for the customer but a detail of massive importance to many chefs. They don’t want to have to change their prep process when using New Culture cheese so the ability to buy in block format and grate to their specifications is huge. And, for those chefs that need to buy our cheese pre-shredded, well, no problem there either.

At New Culture we have the utmost respect for the art of making pizzas. For what seems like such a simple dish, there’s a lifetime’s worth to learn. Luckily, the more we learn from the talented chefs who make up the industry, the more we can push the boundaries of what’s possible with animal-free dairy.