Allergico talks to: Truffle Pig

Back in 2016, musician Lily Gaskell founded Truffle Pig as a response to the lack of vegan chocolates on the market. Since then, the company’s gone from strength to strength winning her a loyal fan-base and two FreeFrom Food Awards. Ahead of the busy Christmas period, we caught up with Lily and asked her about all things veganism, allergies and of course, CHOCOLATE!

1. Why did you set up Truffle Pig?

I’ve done all sorts of jobs since leaving university as well as working as a Musician throughout. I was working part time in a café and as the resident vegan I got to help make cakes and develop menu items with the chef to cater to the growing vegans customers. I’ve always made Christmas present, mostly because I don’t want to contribute to mass consumerism but also mostly because its cheaper.. It’s also just a lovely way to show your family and friends how much you love them with something you’ve made yourself. I started trying to make truffles because it seemed easy. It wasn’t as they are very small and fiddly and I’m quite heavy handed.. After lots of messy attempts I had some friends ask if they could buy boxes as present so after that first Christmas I decided I would go all in with vegan chocolate and Truffle Pig was created!

2. Why is it important to you that it was a vegan chocolate company?

It was never a question, I’ve been vegan for around 5 years and started Truffle Pig 3 years ago. Back then there wasn’t much good chocolate about for vegans and we were lucky that we rode the wave of a growing trend in veganism.

3. What role do you feel veganism can play in helping those with certain allergies?

Having won silver for the past two years at the free from food awards I’ve seen a real mix in vegan and non vegan business represented in the free from industry so whilst there is an element of similarity the majority of our customers are vegan with a smaller percentage dairy free. Veganism has highlighted the demand for free from products because there is still a misconception that if you are vegan you are also gluten free, soya free and everything else free. The need for clear vegan labelling is reassuring for those with allergies and with growing demand for vegan products it will only further highlight the need for more free from products.

4. What’s your favourite part of the chocolate creating process?

I absolutely love tempering chocolate by hand. This was something I would watch chocolatiers do and never thought I would master it. They moved the chocolate about with such finesse, cooling it on a marble slab. I got a discount bit of worktop and tile scraper from a hardware store and practised and practised. It’s a skill I’ve learnt and I am proud to be an entirely self taught chocolatier, coming from a diy punk background, this was something that was really important to me.

5. What kind of winter products are you creating?

This year we are bringing back some favourites from the last year including our ever popular Truffle Pig Pots which feature a huge helping of our hazelnut cream that goes into our buenos so people can have their very own vegan Christmas dessert!

We are also doing our festive truffle box which includes Biscoff fudge, Rochers, and Bucks Fizz truffles. We are also doing selection boxes and a treat box that will have a selection of bars and truffles.

6. What’s your best-selling product?

Other than cream eggs…at the moment it’s our Bueno bar and our new milk chocolate caramel crunch bar made using rice milk. Vegan versions of classic bars seem to be the most popular with our customers!

7. What are your future plans for the business?

I’m guilty of being very in the moment. We plan month to month and for big holidays like Christmas but we very much focus on the next few months. I say we, I should mention that this year my partner, Ian, left his office 9-5 to pack all our orders and run the business with me. We still make everything from our home kitchen in Sheffield so our future plans involve moving in to bigger house with either a purpose build kitchen or separate space to run the business. As we upscale production with machinery and more space I’d like to stock more shops and grow our wholesale business.

8. If you could bring back any chocolate, which would it be?

I used to love poppets when we went to the cinema!

9. Why is the company named Truffle Pig?

Ian is the OG Truffle Pig. When I first started making truffles I wanted to see how they kept in different temperatures so I would keep them in Tupperware around the house; near a radiator, behind the sofa, in the bathroom, everywhere! Ian would sniff them out and eat them! Hence Truffle Pig!

10. What is the most unusual chocolate flavour you’ve made?

That would be either beetroot or bacon. Not together, that would be even weirder!

Check out Truffle Pig’s delicious chocolates at: www.trufflepigvegan.com

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