Published: 4/12/2024
If you don’t already know Dale Vince, then strap in, as we caught up with the power-house environmental entrepreneur to find out all about his latest venture – Devil’s Kitchen.
What inspired you to start Devil’s Kitchen?
My experience rescuing Forest Green Rovers in 2010 inspired the start of Devil’s Kitchen. When I took over the club, we quickly faced the issue of food and decided to go plant-based. It took a few years, but we became the world’s first vegan football club, and that experience taught us a lot, especially about people’s attitudes towards food.
Food has been a focus for me since the early 2000s, along with energy and transport, which together account for 80% of carbon footprints. When Barry, who runs Devil’s Kitchen, approached me about making vegan food for children in UK schools, I loved the idea. Educating kids about food and offering healthier plant-based options is vital, and this project fits perfectly with our mission.
Can you share the story behind the name “Devil’s Kitchen”?
The name comes from Forest Green Rovers. We like to have fun with names – our mascot is the Green Devil, and our stadium’s catering outlets are called “Devil’s Kitchen.” So when we started the food production venture, it made sense to keep the name. It maintains the link between the club and its environmental mission, which resonates with our younger audience.
What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced in creating plant-based foods that appeal to a wide audience?
Our food has been really well received, from primary schools to universities, hospitals, and sports stadiums nationwide. We decided the next audience we want to reach is customers of whole food shops nationwide. Our food is delicious, it’s exceptionally clean and free from the 14 major food allergens. And we don’t try to mimic meat products. These are our core principles.
Having our food accepted has never been difficult, the challenges we’ve faced have been mainly keeping up with demand. So, our challenges are more about scaling up, which is a good problem to have!
Sustainability is a core value for you. Alongside food, what else are you involved in currently?
Haha, so, back to answer number one… our principles are energy, transport, and food. In energy, we’re building wind, solar, and battery projects, and a major new initiative is that we’re making gas from grass. There is enough grass in Britain to make all of the gas our homes need. It’s a key part of how we get to net zero.
In food, we run the vegan football club and Devil’s Kitchen, which is in one of four British primary schools, which is quite incredible.
We’ve also just started to make human-edible protein from grass. Just before we make gas from grass, there is a kind of combo process that we are hoping to create. We’ve been successful in the lab and are going for food safety approval now. Six months from now, we hope to have released to the world our very first product containing grass protein, which we might call the grass-fed burger, for a bit of fun.
In transport, we started the world’s first electric airline about a year ago. We hope to be in the air sometime next year. The technology we’re using is a combination of hydrogen and fuel cells to power electric motors, driving propellers in 70-seater aircraft.
We also make diamonds from atmospheric carbon. We’re about to start making diamonds for quantum computing and telecoms as well, from the same operation. We have a bunch of things in R&D.
What are your goals for Devil’s Kitchen in the next few years?
We want to get great vegan food in front of more people. I’m against the rise of the dirty vegan genre that you see, and the ultra-processed vegan food that’s mimicking meat. Our mission is to bring a range of food to as many people as possible that is simple, clean, healthy, and sustainable.
Suma seems like such a natural fit for Devil’s Kitchen. What made you partner with us?
I’ve been aware of Suma for a long time. I’ve been a customer of whole food shops for a long time as well, up and down the country. Funnily enough, Devil’s Kitchen products have featured at least one ingredient from Suma in all bar-one of the recipes we’ve ever created.
It was just a growing feeling. I kept seeing other products in fridges and freezers of wholefood shops and I was thinking, our Devil’s Kitchen stuff, we should get it in front of people. We started working with our Stroud local whole food shop, Sunshine. It’s near our factory and we could supply them directly, and it was just a light bulb moment to say “why don’t we talk to their wholesaler” to reach the thousands across the UK.
And I think it was Barry who said that Suma are the wholesale provider for most of these places, so it made great sense to team up. I love the co-operative nature of Suma, where you’re coming from, and what you do – it’s a great fit for us
Stay in touch with Devil’s Kitchen here.