Violife Professional – the food service arm of Upfield – has today announced a brand-new partnership with MasterChef: The Professionals winner Alex Webb. The collaboration will show professional chefs and operators just how easy it is to swap dairy for plant-based alternatives, without sacrificing on taste or performance
Combining classical French training with a passion for plant-based ingredients, Alex is widely regarded as one of the UK’s most talented up-and-coming chefs. He won MasterChef: The Professionals in 2020 and was previously an Executive Chef at the InterContinental London Park Lane hotel. He now runs his own private dining and supper club events.
To launch the new partnership, Alex has crafted six delicious recipes worthy of a MasterChef winner to showcase how using Violife Professional’s plant-based range – including Flora Plant B+tter, Flora Plant Cream, and Violife Creamy – instead of dairy can be a simple swap that produces a lower CO2 footprint* without sacrificing flavour or performance.
Each unique recipe has its own inspiring video in which Alex provides tips and tricks to other professional chefs that may want to recreate them in their kitchens. They will be published over the coming weeks with the first video centred around showstopper semi-final dish that secured his place in the MasterChef final – Slow Cooked Potatoes.
“Violife Professional products have been staples in my kitchens for some time, so I’m really excited to be able to showcase how easy it is to swap dairy for plant-based alternatives,” Alex commented.
“I particularly enjoyed remaking my signature dish – Slow Cooked Potatoes – with exclusively plant-based ingredients to show people that you can use dairy alternatives in professional kitchens without sacrificing taste or performance. If anything, I find that they perform better in all my dishes – with the added benefit of removing allergens from the kitchen. I know many forward-thinking chefs are adopting more plant-based cooking in their restaurants as they can already see the benefits.”
The following recipes in the series will be Mixed Vegetable Summer Veloute, Salt Baked Sand Carrot, Plant-based Mozzarella Croquettes, Lemon and Poppy Seed Cake, and Rhubarb Crumble with Soft Serve.
Martina Isella, Senior Marketing Manager at Violife Professional said: “We are at a pivotal moment for the future of our planet, and we believe chefs can play a key role by making the simple swaps to plant-based alternatives today. We know our products deliver great flavour and performance – all while being better for our planet than dairy* – so we want to get the word out there and show chefs how swapping to plant-based alternatives can enhance their cooking.”
“Alex is a true advocate for plant-based cooking, which makes him the perfect choice for this partnership. There are few people better than a MasterChef champion to showcase what these products can do in the professional kitchen, and we’re delighted to have Alex on board.”
To watch Alex cooking with the Violife Professional range, please visit: https://we.tl/t-yDw5z5tmtG
*Flora Plant has at least 72% less climate impact than dairy butter in the UK according to a Life Cycle Assessment tool (developed by Quantis) comparing Flora Plant B+tter and dairy butter in the UK (2023).