Because most new food is a guess. We would rather ask you.
Every product starts with an idea. Sometimes it comes from something we taste, sometimes from an ingredient we want to do more with, and sometimes from a simple thought: Why doesn't this exist already?
But having an idea is one thing. Knowing whether people will actually want to eat it, buy it and come back for more is something else entirely.
That's why we're building the Test Kitchen. We want to try things, make mistakes, learn as we go and discover what people really love. This page explains why we do things the way we do: why we've chosen a test kitchen instead of a factory, why fermentation plays such a big part in our work, why everything is plant-based, why we care about British ingredients, why we put the best of it in One Box, and why we want to share the whole journey with you. If you're curious about what we're building, how it works and where it might lead, you're in the right place.
Why a test kitchen?
Our approach is simple: make a small batch, get it in front of people and see what happens. We don't need to spend months guessing or commit to thousands of units before we know whether an idea has legs. We can make a few jars, send them out, listen to what people say and decide what to do next. If something doesn't work, we've lost a little time and a few ingredients, not an entire production run. That gives us the freedom to be curious, take a few risks and keep working on the ideas that deserve it. We're not setting out to build a factory full of products. We're building a place where we can discover which products are worth making.
And once you know that you can try something without risking everything, it changes the way you think. You become more willing to follow an unusual idea, even if you're not sure where it will lead. What about a seed cheese made without cashews? A tempeh made from British peas? A kombucha dressing that deliberately separates into two layers? Some ideas will work beautifully. Others won't work at all. That's fine. We'll show you what we're doing, learn from the things that go wrong and keep improving. Ultimately, the real test isn't whether we like a product in our own kitchen. It's whether someone who has never met us is happy to spend their money on it, enjoys eating it and comes back for more.
The idea for the Test Kitchen comes from my own experience. When I started SaladPride, my first café in Covent Garden, I wasn't setting out to become a product developer. I simply wanted to serve the kind of food I believed in: plant-based, gluten-free and made without refined sugar. The problem was that I couldn't always find the products I needed, so I started making them myself. I made pastries, plant-based cheeses, a gluten-free bread mix, a vegan omelette and even kombucha. It all began because I needed those products for my own food. I had no idea then how much product development would become part of my life.
After COVID, when I closed my last restaurant, I decided to put everything I had into developing food products. That gave me the opportunity to experiment, turn ideas into prototypes and learn what it takes to develop products for a real business. Over the years, I've worked on many products and gained a huge amount of experience. But along the way, I also came up with ideas that didn't fit the existing range. Some were tested and set aside, some didn't work, and others simply belonged somewhere else. They weren't necessarily bad ideas; they just weren't right for that particular business.
I've never quite been able to let go of those ideas. I kept thinking about what might happen if they had somewhere to go, somewhere I could explore them without having to fit them into an existing range. That feeling is a big part of why I created the Test Kitchen. I want to give those ideas another chance, make room for new ones and find out what happens when you let curiosity lead the way.
The plan is to keep developing new food every week and bring people along for the ride. I'll share the experiments, the recipes, the unexpected results and the occasional failure. You can try the best of it through One Box and the website, and tell us directly what you think. Over the course of a year, we'll discover which ideas have potential and which ones need to make way for something new. I'd love to find a product that people get genuinely excited about, but I don't want to decide what that product should be before we've even started. That's the whole point of doing this in public.
Why One Box?
Because the best way to try new food is together. One Box is a monthly box of 10 new food discoveries: original creations, experimental recipes and unusual ingredients that haven't made it onto supermarket shelves. You taste them, rate them and tell us what you think, and your feedback helps decide which ideas go further. We're inviting the first 100 curious eaters to join us, so that we can start small, listen carefully and build it with the people who will actually open the box. Find out more and register your interest.
How the kitchen works
We develop. Every week we make new food, in small batches, usually in several variations, using fermentation and dehydration as our main tools. Small batches mean we can work fast and cheaply, change a recipe the moment something isn’t right, and try ideas that would be far too risky at factory scale. Our krauts, for example, are made in batches of just a few kilograms, with measured salt and a target acidity, and kept refrigerated throughout, so that every jar is alive and consistent.
We test. Each new creation goes straight to real people, online and in One Box. We listen to what people say, and watch what they buy and what they come back for. Online, we see which launches people order and which they reorder. We measure what happens instead of guessing, and we keep careful records of what people rated, which products sold together, what people said about the price, and how much was wasted.
You validate. Sales, ratings and repeat purchases decide what survives. The winners become Plaenty products, and the rest are dropped without regret. We look at consumer response, repeat purchase potential, how practical the product is to make, whether we can get the ingredients reliably, the margin, the shelf life, whether it can scale and whether it fits the brand. Failure is part of the model: a product we stop after testing has saved us money and kitchen time for something people actually want.
We stay safe. Every batch is lab-tested at the start, and nothing is released until the results are back. We would rather be slow than sorry. Where a claim needs validating, such as the shelf life of a new product or the use of the word “fermented” on a label, we validate it first and only say it afterwards.
From forty ideas to a handful of winners
In our first year we expect to develop thirty to forty products in the kitchen, refine them through testing, and share them with customers through One Box and the webshop. The ones that show real ratings and real repeat purchases, around twenty to twenty-five, are carried into the second year, where we make them in small batches, gather more data, and see which ones earn a place at scale. Alongside them, we carry on developing ten to fifteen new ideas, because the discovery never stops.
At the end of that filter we expect a handful of commercially significant products. That is the point. The kitchen is not designed to launch everything we invent. It is designed to find the few things that people truly love, and to do so cheaply, quickly and in the open.
Where products go next
The kitchen never becomes a factory, and it never disappears. It stays our innovation engine, making our signature live ferments in our own hands, because cold-chain products need that care, and continuously testing new ideas.
A product only graduates when its sales can cover a full production run. That rule keeps growth steady: scale never outruns cash, the range broadens only as fast as customers ask for it, and each year the strongest new products from the kitchen join our core range while weak listings are dropped.
Why fermentation?
Fermentation is one of the things I'm most excited about because it can transform such ordinary ingredients into something completely different. Cabbage becomes a sharp, crunchy kraut. Seeds can become a tangy, cheese-like spread. Tea can turn into kombucha or, with further fermentation, vinegar for a dressing. You start with simple ingredients and give naturally occurring microorganisms the time and conditions to change them, developing flavours that would be difficult to achieve any other way.
A lot of packaged food is designed around consistency, convenience and a long shelf life. Fermentation offers another approach. Rather than relying only on heat treatment and preservation, we can use carefully managed fermentation to develop flavour and, in suitable products, help preserve the food. It's also an area with growing commercial interest. The UK kombucha market has been estimated at well over £150 million, with forecasts pointing to further growth, while the global fermented food and drink market is also projected to expand significantly. Those figures are interesting, but they're not the main reason we're doing this. We ferment because we love what it can do to food, and because there's still so much to explore.
That doesn't mean we can simply leave something to ferment and hope for the best. Fermentation needs care and control. Salt levels matter, acidity needs to be monitored, and every process needs to be checked for the particular product we're making. Live fermented products need appropriate storage, and shelf life has to be established rather than guessed. We're interested in the creative side of fermentation, but we're just as serious about getting the process right. If we're going to put a product in your hands, we need to understand how it behaves and how to make it safely.
Why plant-based?
Everything we make is vegan, and for us that opens up a world of possibilities. We're not interested in spending all our time trying to copy meat or dairy. We'd rather start with plants, seeds, pulses and vegetables and see what they can become. Can we make a cheese-like wheel from seeds without relying on cashews or coconut oil? Can British-grown peas become a sliceable protein block? Can we make tempeh from peas and seeds? What would a pesto made with nettles, watercress or samphire taste like instead of the usual basil? And can we make a really good shortbread using banana and coconut oil? These are the kinds of questions that keep us busy.
Some experiments will lead somewhere, and others will send us back to the kitchen to try again. That's what makes this interesting. Plant-based food doesn't have to be an imitation of something else. It can have its own flavours, textures and personality, built around ingredients that deserve a bit more attention.
Why British ingredients?
We'd like to make more of the ingredients that grow here in Britain. There are British-grown pulses, seasonal greens and vegetables that can do far more than we tend to ask of them, and we want to explore those possibilities. Where we use British ingredients, we want to be able to tell you what they are and where they come from. That might mean a particular heritage pea in our houmous, seasonal British greens in a pesto, or British-grown organic pulses in a legume-based block or wheel. Knowing a little more about what's on your plate can make eating more interesting, and it gives us a reason to build relationships with growers closer to home.
There's a practical side to this, too. Britain imports large quantities of food that we could potentially make more of here, including pasta. British producers are already showing that there is room to do things differently, and that people are willing to give home-grown products a chance. Northern Pasta Co, for example, began on a market stall in 2022 and has grown its production substantially. We'd love to see the same curiosity directed towards British pulses, greens and fermented foods. There's plenty to work with, and we'd rather explore what's possible than assume the best ingredients always have to come from somewhere else.
Why seeds and pulses?
Seeds and pulses are some of our favourite ingredients because they're versatile, practical and full of possibilities. They're grown on British farms, can be used in so many different ways and give us the chance to rethink products that are usually made with other ingredients. Sunflower, hemp and pumpkin seeds can form the starting point for a cultured, cheese-like wheel without cashews. British peas can be explored as the basis for a sliceable protein block without soy. Nut and seed butters can become wonderfully smooth sauces with a little hot pasta water, without needing cream or dairy.
We also like being able to explain what's in a product without making you work your way through a long list of unfamiliar ingredients. If something is made from sunflower seeds, hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds, salt and a live culture, we want you to know that. A short ingredient list doesn't automatically make a product better, of course, but we think ingredients should have a clear purpose and the finished food should taste good. Seeds and pulses give us plenty of room to experiment, and we're only just getting started.
Why keep making something new?
Because we don't want the Test Kitchen to become a place where ideas sit in notebooks for months while we wait for the perfect moment. Making something new every week gives us a reason to keep making, testing and learning, and gives One Box a steady stream of new discoveries. Over a year, that's 52 opportunities to try something different. Some products might be ready to share fairly quickly; others will need more work, and a few will probably turn out to be dead ends. But each experiment gives us something useful to take into the next one.
The weekly rhythm also helps us stay practical. It's easy to fall in love with an idea when you're the one who created it. Getting it in front of customers forces you to look at it differently. Does it taste as good as we think? Is the price right? Would someone buy it again? Can we make it consistently? We want to answer those questions early, while there's still room to change direction. After a year, we hope to have much more than a collection of recipes: we'll have a clearer picture of what people want, what we can make well and which ideas are worth taking further.
Why film everything?
Because we want you to see what goes into making a product, not just the finished jar or packet. We'll film the experiments, the ingredients, the preparation, the fermentation and the tasting. You'll see the things that work, but you'll also see the moments when something goes wrong or the result isn't what we expected. That's part of the process, and we'd rather be open about it than pretend every idea comes together perfectly on the first attempt.
We'll use Instagram for regular updates, TikTok for shorter films that give you a quick look inside the kitchen, and YouTube for longer experiments and the stories behind them. The website will be where you can find and buy the products, while the newsletter will help you keep up with what's coming next. We hope the content will help people discover the project without relying heavily on paid advertising. The process itself gives us something worth sharing, and the more people follow it, the more opportunities we'll have to get new products in front of them.
Why does your opinion matter?
Because this only works if we listen to the people we're making the food for. You might try something in One Box, order a product from the website, tell us what you think or come back a few weeks later to buy it again. Every one of those reactions helps us understand what we're getting right and what needs to change. We'd love to hear what you enjoy, but we also want you to tell us when something isn't for you. You don't need to be polite, and you don't need to tell us you love something just because we've made it. Honest feedback is far more useful. Ultimately, the products that have a future should be the ones people actually want to eat and buy.