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Focus on Co-op
Suppliers: Vegan Creations
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by Suzanne Fisher
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Vegan Creations, producer
of hummus and seitan for Honest Weight Food Co-op, is a picture perfect
example of the phrase "cottage industry." Located in a quiet
neighborhood of cozy homes with old trees, large green yards, and
gardens, this home-based business leaves behind the rush and bustle of
life for a more creative and nurturing way of doing things.
Rada Savcic and Snezana (Nena) Savcic-Freeman, a mother- daughter team,
have integrated their appreciation for organic, locally grown flavors,
community input, and their Yugoslavian ingenuity to plant and grow a
small business.
Rada worked for years at the Albany restaurant Shades of Green, where
she became familiar with vegan cuisine. There she realized from
customer requests that there was a niche to be filled.
When Rada, her daughter, and son-in-law purchased their home, they
already were making plans to convert some part of it into a kitchen
where she and her daughter could begin to produce vegan specialty food
items. They enclosed and outfitted a 10'-by-10' room in the basement
with refrigerator, ovens, sinks, microwave, food processor, counters,
tables, a multitude of utensils, and one small window in an
unbelievable concentration of efficiency.
It is here that Rada and Nena work to knead and bake seitan and mix up
humus for Honest Weight, Cambridge Co-op, and the Troy and Schenectady
Farmers' Markets. For the markets they also bake gluten-free pastries
and sweets. One very popular item, vegan apple strudel, is made by
kneading out the dough into an impossibly thin sheet and filling it
with an organic apple mixture in the traditional European way.
Rada explained that seitan is a product that is made of wheat gluten,
containing almost 70% protein in comparison to all other vegetable
sources of protein, which contain at most less than half that amount.
She has developed her own special blend of spices and herbs for the
seitan, and it is sold packaged in chunks or thinly sliced. The seitan
can be used in any way that meat is used, but contains much less fat
and no cholesterol. Their humus has undergone a similar evolution to
suit the tastes of their customers. They currently offer roasted red
pepper, sun dried tomato, spinach, and black bean humus for sale at
Honest Weight.
Rada and Nena purchase many of their ingredients from the Troy Farmers'
Market. Here they obtain produce from Seth Jacobs, who also provides
organic vegetables to Honest Weight, and they procure apples from an
organic orchard that sells them all year long. They also buy
ingredients such as Champlain Valley organic flour and organic wheat
gluten from the local supplier Regional Access. Nena explained that
when she first came to the United States, the vegetables and fruit in
the grocery stores seemed to be bland and tasteless in comparison to
the locally grown produce in Yugoslavia. When she discovered the
American phenomenon of organically grown produce, she recognized the
flavors she had been missing. She summed it up simply: "Organic tastes
better."
Vegan Creations continues to evolve as Rada and Nena respond to
customers' requests for vegan and gluten-free specialties by developing
new recipes. Rada explained that vegan cookies are difficult to bake
because the usual ingredients of butter and eggs, which hold them
together and add moisture, are not part of the vegan diet. She has had
a good result with nut butters, as was evident when they sent me home
with a box of five different varieties of cookies to try.
After my visit, I went to the Coop and purchased Vegan Creations, and
was very pleased. I recommend their seitan and hummus to vegans and
non-vegans alike. Vegan Creations definitely ranks as one of the
wonderful local sources of healthful and delicious foods we have access
to through Honest Weight.
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