Get To Know – Botanical Cuisine

Do you love cheese? Go crazy for frozen yoghurt or sometimes just crave a bowl of delicious ice cream? Who doesn’t? Are you also someone who experiences bloating, gas, pains, cramps and gurgling or rumbling sounds coming from your lower belly after you eat or drink dairy products? Well guess what? If you have reluctantly eliminated milk products from your life because of its unpleasant side effects, you no longer have to go without your beloved yoghurt on your muesli, decedent deserts or ice cream with your fruit salad – or let’s face it ice cream by itself on any occasion thanks to Melbourne based company Botanical Cuisine.Botanical Cuisine has lovingly created a range of delicious non-dairy delicacies such as Cashew Yoghurt in three enticing flavours: Blueberry Acai, Orange Lucuma and Vanilla Mesquite which all include superfood supplements to help seriously kick-start your day and allow you to enjoy your yoghurt for breakfast without the squeamish tummy once you get to work.

The Health Emporium is also stocked with all three of Botanical Cuisines lovely jars of Cashew Cream Cheese: Classic, Lemon & Dill and Walnut which can be used as a tasty addition to cream based soups, cake frostings or as a substitute for milk or cream in any filling.

For all you ice cream fanatics, Botanical Cuisine really has outdone themselves! We cannot rave about this mouth-watering product enough! You simply must try all three of their Frozen Cashew Yoghurt flavours: Raspberry, Coffeexocolatl and the continually popular Classic. This non-dairy, unrefined, silky-smooth, melt in your mouth frozen yoghurt simply sells itself.

If ice cream is not for you but you’re still quite partial to an after dinner sweet treat then you must try Botanical Cuisine’s little jars of Mint Slice Pudding, Almond Cointreau Pudding, Sticky Date Pudding and Melbourne Nights which is packed full of coconut, cacao and raspberry deliciousness.

Botanical Cuisine’s mission is to help people utilise the unique and health enhancing properties of plant-based foods to create delicious cuisine. They have also produced three beautiful top quality salts to enhance and complete any meal. These salts contain plenty of sodium, natural iodine, and loads of minerals adding even more health benefits to a meal. They are available in Truffle, Saffron and Lemon flavours and perfectly compliment a large variety of dishes.

We sought out a little more knowledge and insight from behind the scenes of this remarkable company asking the creators themselves:

Where did the inspiration behind this company come from?
Omid Jaffari, the founder and managing director of Botanical Cuisine was a chef who had a high intolerance for dairy products. He saw a market for products that are not only fresh, healthy and delicious but also suitable for people with various allergies. Through his passion for food and his creative desire, he came up with recipes that incorporated raw ingredients to scientifically design each of our amazing products.

What makes your products different from similar ones currently on the market?
We think our products differ from our competitors’ in many ways including: the amazing flavour and consistency of our products; use of the best quality, local ingredients; our attitude of ‘no substitutes or short-cuts’; our ability to hand make every product in small batches using seasonal, local and quality ingredients every week in our small Melbourne factory; our very small but happy and savvy team and our driving passion for ‘quality food’ before ‘profit’.

What is your favourite Botanical Cuisine product at the moment?
We have no ‘favourites’ as we love them all but at present; we are very excited about our dessert range and the recent release of our sticky date pudding.

Your packaging is so cute! Do you recycle or reuse the little jars?
We are very environmentally conscious here at Botanical Cuisine and we try our best to recycle as much as we can. We use recycled paper and cardboard, glass jars and labels made from stone but we can not recycle our jars as we work under very strict sterilisation guidelines and can not re-use jars for manufacturing purposes. We are however, working on ways to be even more ‘green’ and hope to be able to do more in the future wherever possible.

What’s in store for the future?
We are coming to the end of our 2nd year of business in September 2014 and by next year; we want to continue to grow the business with a larger range of products. We have new products due for release very soon!

The Botanical Cuisine product range is 100% Organic, Raw, Vegan, Gluten-free, Refined Sugar-free and Plant Based which release natural enzymes to help your body absorb the nutrients from living foods, increase energy, assist with digestion, enhance mental clarity and most importantly make you feel lively and energetic instead of slow, sluggish and plain sick in the stomach. You can find most of these yummy products in the fridge section at The Health Emporium. Once you have tried one of these little jars of goodness you’ll find it hard not to cram your fridge full of the whole range. Hey, go ahead they don’t come with any regretful side effects.

Written by Prue Rustean