One Planet Pizza – Review

Some areas in the country are better than others for the plethora of plant-based food outlets they are home to. In Newcastle we don’t have many solely vegan eateries, but we do have a wealth of places that will accommodate. This blog would be pretty boring otherwise! I wrote a whole post devoted to all of the restaurants we could visit to eat dairy free pizza. I actually surprised myself when pulling this article together, especially as the Toon is home to Boho Vegan Pizza Company. Ordering via Deliveroo, Boho will deliver a range of vegan pizzas to your front door if you are lucky enough to be in their catchment area.

What if you’re trying to economise or aren’t in their delivery radius? I have tried making my own pizzas at home. For convenience I would buy ready made bases from Tesco, which were perfect for the Teen to knock up when he came in from school and was hangry. I also attempted to make a gluten free base using a mix I’d purchased but didn’t feel it was a success in comparison to others I’d tried. Hearing that a frozen pizza range was also going to be stocked at Alternative Stores I was interested to find out more.One Planet Pizza are the UK’s first frozen pizza company. One of the things I was pleased to discover is that the business has been crowdfunded in part by vegetarians and vegans in the community. There was clearly demand for a product such as this and the plans are for these pizzas to be stocked across Europe in the not-to-distant future. Alternative Stores are the first North East based stockist and I was given the nod once the first delivery had arrived so I could give them a try for myself.

At £4.75 they are slightly more expensive than the ones you will find in your supermarket freezer cabinets, but this is an exclusive product. Assembling my own would probably tot up to much the same price point using premium ingredients such as Sheese – which is the dairy free cheese One Planet use as a topping on theirs – and the convenience of having a ready made pizza just waiting for us after a long day at work or school.I bought the Teen his favourite Margherita, although I was aware that he might not have been so keen on trying vegan pizza, and I picked out a Roasted Vegetable version for myself. Others on offer include Hawaiian and a Funghi Feast. The toppings were generous, especially on the vegetable version. I’m not a fan of black olives but decided to leave them on rather than picking them off as I normally would!

All of the pizzas are made with organic locally sourced flour, organic tomato sauce, and flax seed and chia seed added for Omega 3 and other health benefits. I was happy to see that when palm oil is used – the Hawaiian Pizza features mock ham and this is part of their ingredients – and Bute Island (who also supply the Sheese) are committed to using it from a sustainable source in their production process.

The pizzas were really filling compared to others I’ve tried and even the picky Teen said he would be happy to eat one of these again! The generous toppings and the dairy free cheese – believe me, not all are as melty as this variety – made it enjoyable. There are other varieties in the pipeline, including a gluten free base, which demonstrates how market savvy One Planet Pizza are. I will definitely be popping a few in the freezer as I’d imagine they’ll not be hanging round on the shelves of Alternative Stores for very long.

Thanks for reading,

Pip x