WNC-based Darë Vegan Cheese Goes From Local Farmers Markets To National Shelves

We’re marking America’s 250th anniversary this year. Here in western North Carolina, we have a lot of reasons to celebrate, right in our backyard.

Darë Vegan Cheese launched in 2019 at farmers’ markets across Asheville and is now sold nationwide.

Inside Darë’s manufacturing facility in Weaverville, there’s culinary magic, but also science. That’s because the magician behind all this unapologetically cheesy vegan goodness really is a scientist. Gwendolyn Hageman graduated from UNC Asheville with a biology degree and a passion for food.

“I grew up eating a block of cheddar and Ritz is what I say, the standard early 90’s diet,” she said.

Hageman had a lightbulb moment while spending time with family.

“My sister was vegan, and she would bring home vegan cheese, and I was like, these are bad,” she added.

She was waiting tables at a local restaurant when the idea came to her.

“Man, I think I want to start a vegan cheese company. It knew it was something Asheville needed,” she said.

Hageman’s middle name is Dare, which ended up playing a big part in her soon-to-be company when she was sitting in a local dive bar with a friend.

“We were sitting in Desoto, he wrote down on a napkin ‘Dare’. That was the first thing he wrote down. He was like, ‘It’s pronounced Darë.’ And I was like, ‘Okay. That’s it.'”

At first, Hageman did everything. She loaded the van, made the cheese, wrapped it, and delivered it. Today, Darë has 12 employees, more than a dozen vegan cheeses and a production facility in Weaverville.

“I’m humbled enough to say when I went to the Whole Foods for the first time and bought my product off the shelf, I sat in my car and cried. I was just over the moon that this idea, from napkin to shelf, and Whole Foods. [It] was unreal.”

So, what makes Darë’s process better than other vegan competitors? Hageman answers easily: “They think about it not scientifically, my brain works that way. So, I feel like I can’t call something cheese unless microbes are involved, and so that makes us vastly different.”

Today, you can find Darë Vegan Cheese all over the country, including California and Hawaii.

#cheese #america250 #localbusiness

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