Durban - It all started as an experiment with the Kenwood mixer in the kitchen of Wally and Debbie Fry’s family home in Winston Park.
Those experiments were developing meat-free alternative meals for themselves and their family (all committed vegetarians) to enjoy.
More than 20 years after Wally Fry quit the construction industry and launched Fry Food Family in 1991, Fry’s vegetarian mince was selected to supply the 2012 London Olympics.
Today, with a factory in Westmead, the company’s vegetarian products are available in 25 countries and an estimated 20 000 outlets globally. Their products are available in most major supermarket outlets in South Africa.
I have been invited to a cooking demonstration using their products. We’re a mixed bunch, some vegans, a few vegetarians and a few avid meat eaters.
Brand manager Donovan Will chats to us over a glass of wine while we’re munching the latest Fry’s product, butternut balls, dipped in hummus. These are rather good, an ideal party snack.
He tells how in the late 1980s Wally Fry had seen first-hand the cruelty in factory meat farming and the ravages it caused to the environment. Debbie Fry was a vegetarian. A lack of protein alternative options, and his own personal challenge to stay within the diet, led to the research to develop healthy vegetarian foods that would break the habit of meat eating. And it had to be fun and easy.
It also, Wally Fry tells us in a video presentation, had to use the best ingredients and “MSG, food colourants, nasty chemicals, genetically modified ingredients, hydrogenated fats, cholesterol, and, of course, absolutely any animal products had to be excluded”.
Crucially, he says, the food had to taste great. And so we’re off to the kitchen to get cooking, each at our own cooking station.
First up was a simple salad of lettuce, rocket, peas and sweetcorn topped with more of those butternut balls and fellafels, which went down a treat for lunch the next day. There’s a starter of a toad in the hole using Fry’s vegetarian sausages and a batter made from chickpea liquid flour and almond milk. And a very good raw broccoli salad. Mains is a vegetarian a la king, and we finished off with mini pavlova with a chickpea-based meringue and a creamy coconut kasha.
This uses one of the latest Fry’s products, their cacao kasha, a vegetable protein “cereal” that Will tells us is also superb as a smoothie or protein shake after a hectic session in the gym. It has a pleasant malty taste. The dessert could also be served with another new product, Fry’s artisan non-dairy coconut ice cream.
While we’re all cooking up a storm, Will tells us that while it is our choice to eat meat, the planet kills 60 billion land animals and 2 740 billion fish a year, and that animal agriculture is the single biggest cause of deforestation, water depletion and species extinction.
He says if the land used to grow crops to feed livestock was used to grow food for human consumption, the Earth could feed 10 billion people.
Will says even meat eaters can do their bit to help the environment, with Fry’s Meat Free Monday campaign catching on in South Africa. With Braai Day in mind, he tells us that when he takes the chicken-style burgers to a braai, they’re so good that if he’s not quick enough his mates eat them all and leave him the meat.
All the products are approved by the Vegan Society and the Vegetarian Society and are listed as a best buy in Ethical Consumer. They are Kosher, Shuddha (suitable for Hindus) and Halaal.