Sanitarium Makes Cheesecakes Grow on Trees to Promote Plant-Based Milk Products

Sanitarium & Geometry, the shopper & brand activation arm of Ogilvy New Zealand, created a unique way for people to sample their plant based milks and demonstrate their ability to make everyday fruit and vegetable recipes taste even better.

Many people think that plant milks may not taste that nice and also don’t know how to use them. However, due to gentle flavour profiles, So Good milks enhance the natural flavours of humble, everyday fruit and vegetables. Which makes them perfect for cooking. 

But people can be a little apprehensive about trying something new.

“To truly demonstrate the tastiness and versatility of So Good milks, we wanted to give people a surprising and unexpected experience in a way that felt familiar, but was most importantly also delicious” says Peter Wujkowski, Creative Director of Geometry NZ.

So, how do you show that plant based milks make our favourite fruit and veggies taste even better?

Simple, create fruit and vegetables that taste even better. 

The Otago Polytechnic Food Design institute were tasked with redeveloping six common household recipes using So Good products. Each dish became a plant based take on Tomato Soup, Dhal, Cheesecake, Miso Carrot Puree with Dukkah, Pumpkin Pie, and Apple Pie.

Each of these recipes was then presented in the form of a fruit or vegetable that was used as the base of the dish. The tomato soup was turned into tomatoes, the pear cheesecake into Pears, Chilli Dhal into chillies, Pumpkin Pie into Pumpkins, Apple Pie into apples and Carrot Puree into Carrots. 

Using innovative techniques, the Otago Polytechnic Food Design institute were able to make these creations in bulk, shelf stable, and all without the use of dairy based or synthetic stabilisers, preservatives or emulsifiers. These techniques have now been adopted into the Otago Polytechnic curriculum and are helping to teach the next generation of New Zealand chefs.

A space was then designed to house the creations and amplify the sampling experience. The So Good Garden of Goodness was a fully immersive sensory event with a purpose built terrarium housing living green walls and a lush collection of fruit trees, vines and vegetable plants. Placed in the heart of Auckland’s CBD, passersby could walk through the green space picking the fruit and vegetable creations directly from the branch, vine or edible soil.

Over 3,000 of these surprising creations were sampled over three days and the sampling event was covered by a number of major New Zealand news sources including a live cross on TVNZ and an in-studio interview with the chefs from the Otago Polytechnic Food Design Institute on Breakfast TV.

“We have been amazed at what they’ve been able to produce...we are thrilled to see it inspire students, the food industry and the general public” Hayley Scott, Marketing Business Manager Sanitarium. 

The entire event was filmed and released to the wider public as a series of content videos, whilst filmed recipes and vouchers handed out on the day drove viewers and participants into store.