What’s the key to better vegan cheese? Microbreweries, one startup says

Last week, I overheard someone in a pizza shop ask if a particular slice was vegetarian or vegan. Presumably they wanted to know if the pizza had vegan cheese, and when told it was so, they changed the order.

Vegan cheese is widely considered a poor simulacrum of the dairy version. The key missing ingredient is casein, a protein from mammalian milk that gives cheese its structure and helps it melt.