This is the third of the annual Dairy Free Awards, which highlight and showcase the best of New Zealand's available plant-based dairy alternatives. The Awards cover four categories of products, ice cream, milk, yoghurt and butter, all fully plant-based, high quality, delicious and nutritious. No one needs to go without their favourite foods any more, as the plant-based market keeps on developing new and better products and growing exponentially.

How Vutterly Boring, our butter winners Vutter ran away with the competition this year. Straight off the starting block, newcomers Boring oat milk were also the people's favourite. In fact oat milk was the clear winner in the plant milk section this year. All our nominations were for various oat milks, not a single soy or almond milk was to be heard of! This year it seems consumers are acutely aware of the environmental consequences of their choices, and an Aotearoa grown, made and packaged on the South Island, oat milk was the clear winner.

“It's wonderful to see the increasing number of dairy-free products out there, proving the market is booming and the public's appetite for plant-based is growing. Our Awards set a high bar for companies to step up to, providing quality Kiwi products available to all.” said Claire Insley, media spokesperson for the Vegan Society, “The companies receive acknowledgement for their hard work, vegans know they can trust the winning companies and it takes the guesswork out of it for those dealing with allergies and non-vegans looking to reduce their dairy intake.”

Meanwhile in the ever popular yoghurt and ice cream categories, Little Island won with their unbelievably delicious organic Chocolate ice cream whilst Raglan took the yoghurt title with their tasty Vanilla Bean coconut yoghurt. The runners up were Duck Island Salted Chocolate Brownie ice cream, The Collective Plant Natural Yoghurt, Otis Oat Milk - The Barista and finally Olivani for the butter category.

Last year the awards also covered imported products though the voting showed that Kiwis overwhelmingly support locally produced foods, so this year it was ALL Kiwi brands. With the Climate Change Commission's report last year, it is clear that we have to act now to mitigate our carbon emissions. Eating plant-based meals can reduce your carbon footprint due to food by up to 73%, so there is no better time to do your bit for our planet and make the switch in FebNoDairy. The Vegan Society offers resources for those wishing to take up plant-based eating to help the environment, improve their health and show compassion for the animals.

For the full results check out https://www.vegansociety.org.nz/dairy-free-awards-2022/

© Scoop Media