ACTUAL FOOD, NO SH*T

Our goal is to make plant based cheeses from natural ingredients that come from the ground, without cutting costs by using unnecessary additives, flavor enhancers or cheap fillers. To achieve that, we developed a pretty novel fermentation process that leverages two of nature’s favorite superfoods: cauliflower + hemp.

  • CAULIFLOWER

    CAULIFLOWER because it’s full of vitamins and minerals including vitamin C, vitamin B6, magnesium and folate. It's also high in fibre and antioxidants (which are known to protect the body’s cells from free radicals and inflammation). We use imperfect cauliflowers that aren’t pretty enough to be sold in grocery stores, and give them a new life as cheese.

  • HEMP

    HEMP because it’s one of the most environmentally resilient crops on the planet. It’s also rich in essential Omega-3 fats, protein and calcium, and is a great source of vitamin E, magnesium, iron and zinc.

WHO WE ARE

Grounded started back in a small town called Australia. There, a woman named Veronica Fil realized that she was eating too much cheese. Like, enough cheese to be single handedly responsible for Australia’s contribution to global warming. Veronica knew her craving for dairy simply wasn’t sustainable, but she found it difficult to give up.

So Veronica presented her husband, a guy named Shaun Quade, with the following challenge: “Make me a plant based cheese that doesn’t taste like crap.” 

Now Shaun isn’t an ordinary human. Firstly, he’s a fancy pastry chef who’s won a butt-load of awards and received international recognition for his wildly creative dining concepts. That’s mostly overshadowed by his one-off appearance as a guest judge on Masterchef—where he created the most unnecessarily complicated dish in the television series’ history and led one contestant to cry. 

But he is also the man who fixed vegan cheese. In fact, he made it taste so thoroughly excellent that Veronica couldn’t stop eating it. And he did using ingredients that simply made the most sense to him: cauliflower + hemp.

These ingredients were not the obvious choice to absolutely anyone else in the world, but that’s the magic and mystery of Shaun for you.

Anyway, Veronica loved the cheeses so much that she thought “Hey, while Shaun’s busy being an Art Chef, I’m going to steal borrow his recipes and build a company out of them”. Within a few weeks the pair had received investment, left their careers, family and three friends behind, and moved to Los Angeles to become plant based cheese moguls. And that’s how Grounded was founded.

While the Grounded team is a tiny bit bigger these days, Veronica’s goal remains the same: to make plant based cheese that doesn’t taste like crap. But also, to make it so delicious, sexy and affordable, that everyday people would be totally happy to eat a dairy free option, at least some of the time.

FAQs

Head to LEARN MORE to explore each product in more detail, including its ingredients and nutritional info.

Yes.

We believe that plant based dairy alternatives are key to building a more sustainable and secure food supply chain for future generations.

We choose not to use nuts in our products because they're extremely resource-intensive to process (and use far too much water). Cauliflower scraps + hemp, on the other hand, are far more environmentally resilient.

All our ingredients are sourced locally and our products are manufactured in California.

Grounded is a proud member of the Upcycled Foods Association.

Put it this way: the future of dairy is completely unsustainable. The amount of water and environmental resources needed to manufacture dairy cheese is ridiculous...and from an economic perspective, small-scale farmers don't get compensated fairly for their efforts. The entire system is archaic and inefficient.

Only if you heat it.

All Grounded cheese is manufactured in a certified gluten free and exclusively plant based facility. They do not contain soy or common treenuts, however, they do contain coconut oil so are not recommended for people who are sensitive to coconut.

No. What you're looking for is THC, the intoxicating cannabinoid in marijuana. Hemp doesn't contain a significant amount of this, and as such, it is unlikely to lead to wild and psychedelic cheese dreams.

It's like, the worst sounding thing on our ingredient panel right? Especially if you abbreviate it as GDL. The good news is that it's a common and safe vegetable-based ingredient that's used as a substitute for enzymes in cheese, tofu and baked goods. It's created by microbial (bacteria or yeast) fermentation of a carbohydrate source, and is 100% vegan, gluten free and dairy free.

If you're freaked out by the marketing propaganda surrounding ingredients you can't pronounce...then it's time to learn! Here's how to pronounce it, and here's a little more light reading about it.

We've got some disappointing news for you about the structural composition of hot dogs.

Yes. Contact us at ground.control@groundedfoods.com for pricing, or visit our RangeMe profile.