Do you like the new taste of Alpro’s Plain Soya Yogurt? www.alprosoya.co.uk I realised that they’d changed the recipe recently – changing it to a sweetened yogurt with tastes of vanilla, despite the fact that it’s still called plain and they already make Alpro Vanilla Soya Yogurt. I often use soya yogurt in savoury dishes – risottos, pastas and curries, for example, and Alpro’s new flavour just doesn’t work in these. So I emailed the company to ask whether they had changed the recipe – and whether they would reconsider. Here was their answer –
Dear Ms Cheetham
Thank you for your comments and feedback regarding the change of recipe to our Plain yogurt alternative and I am sorry that you have not enjoyed this product. We believe that there were improvements to be made to our Alpro soya plain yogurt alternative in order to improve the texture of the product and to eliminate water that could on occasions form on top of the product. We wanted to offer a product which tastes good, especially on its own with fresh fruit or with cereals, we do appreciate that it will no longer have the sour taste associated with some plain yogurts. We do appreciate that this product may not be suitable for savoury cooking. You may like to try our Provamel Organic range of products which are available in health food stores such as Holland and Barrett and independent health stores and does include our Organic plain yogurt which maybe more to your taste.
So I’ve tried to get hold of the Provamel Organic Natural Yofu but it’s hard to get hold of. The beauty of the Alpro yogurts is that you can get them in pretty much any large supermarket and in every health food shop, making it possible to buy them almost whenever you want. But I couldn’t find it in any supermarket or in my local Holland & Barrett. So I trekked to Wholefoods (which I do love, though!) and managed to find it there. And yes, it does taste just like the Alpro Plain Soya Yogurt used to – with a lovely tanginess. And I also bought the Sojade Bio Organic Natural + Bifidus yogurt which was good, but a little watery. But I’ll have to make a special effort to buy this now. I honestly don’t care that you needed to stir or whizz the original Alpro yogurt in order to get a smooth, creamy texture. But I mind hugely that it’s now difficult to get hold of a savoury soya yogurt.
And it wasn’t even a savoury yoghurt – it was just a plain yoghurt that could be used for savoury or sweet cooking. At least you got a response when you wrote to Alpro, it’s more than I did. In better news, Tesco are now making a plain yoghurt which I hear is unblemished by vanilla, and which I’m looking forward to trying next time I do an online order.
Hi Elettaria, Delighted to hear from you about this! And yes, I’m looking forward to trying the new Tesco one to see what it’s like. 🙂
Nice to meet you too! I’m a vegan, back on gluten although I tried going gluten-free for a year back in 2010, and developed a nifty GF vegan chocolate prune cake: http://glutenfreevegan.livejournal.com/33696.html. I’ve made it since going back on gluten, as I like to freeze cake and I find that if it has wheat flour in it, it misbehaves in the microwave. This stuff reheats a dream.
]In case it wasn’t obvious before “do you like the Alpro revamped soy yoghurt” was “nope”. I’m also avoiding their soy milks ever since they started ladling huge quantities of vanilla into them. Honestly, with a product range that large, what is wrong with keeping one plain product and one clearly-labelled vanilla product for each? I wonder what has happened to their sales since making this change? Hopefully the Tesco yoghurt will take off, and Alpro will realise that massive amounts of vanilla in their supposedly plain products are not the way to go. I suspect the “can’t be bothered to stir their yoghurt” market may overlap with the “wants everything to be very sweet and strongly flavoured” market, though.
And now I really fancy a big bowl of raita, with cucumber and almonds and raisins and mint, and can’t make any!