Star Hellenika owner launches a fancy (but affordable) vegan butter

Simon Gloftis once fired Claire Beard. Now, they’re business partners.

What brought them back together? Butter. Vegan butter.

“This was, like, 15 years ago or something,” says Gloftis, best known as the restaurateur behind star Brisbane eateries such as Hellenika, SK Steak & Oyster, Sushi Room and Sunshine. “Claire just told me, because I think I’d maybe forgotten.”

“I went on holiday when I wasn’t supposed to,” Beard explains, laughing. “There was a bunch of us; we put them in a bit of a situation.”

Gloftis and Beard, along with Beard’s husband, Luke McCartin, are behind Bu Deli, which they hope to make the go-to plant-based butter in Australia. The market for vegan spreads in Australia tends to be dominated by old-school margarines such as Nuttelex, with smaller players such as Naturli, Botanical Cuisine and Lauds available at more specialised food stores.

Gloftis, Beard and McCartin reckon their product is a step change in quality, yet it’s competitively priced against traditional cow’s butter. You can use it as a spread but also for cooking and baking. And unlike most of its plant-based competitors, Bu Deli can be packaged like traditional butter as a block in foil wrap, with snazzy navy-blue branding courtesy of regular Gloftis collaborator Studio Bland.

“It doesn’t taste exactly like butter, but nor would it, right?” Gloftis says.

“I was in Byron just before COVID and I bumped into Claire, and she said she was making butter. I tried it, fell in love with it. You know when you’re compelled to do something? I said, ‘Let me help you guys. Maybe I can put some money behind it.’

“I’ve been in the food game for such a long time [and] it’s very rare that something comes along that’s special and unique and where the competition is really so far behind.”

Bu Deli is made from macadamia nuts, olive oil and coconut oil, and is cultured, which gives it a European-style tang. When Gloftis bumped into Beard, she and McCartin were producing 400 blocks by hand. Now, after numerous delays – including the kind of equipment supply issues that have become standard during COVID – the trio have opened a factory in Burleigh Heads with capacity to punch out up to 4000 blocks a day.

“There were so many hiccups with machinery breaking and just being incorrect,” McCartin says. “I think it took about 12 months for the wrap packer to come from Europe.

“The main reason for the factory: there are some products out there – they are a vegan butter, in inverted commas, but to produce it in block form [is difficult] and [that’s] why you don’t see it everywhere. It has to properly mimic butter to be wrapped.”

As of today, Bu Deli is available in the Standard Market Company stores on James Street, at Gasworks, and at Brickworks on Ferry Road on the Gold Coast.

“This is an everyday item,” Gloftis says. “And we will slowly be popping up everywhere. And you’ll see us in supermarkets. That is the goal – to make this widely available.”

The intention, also, is to get this into the hands of chefs. Gloftis was already using it at Sunshine, his vegetarian leaning point-and-plate eatery on James Street. He says diners complained when production stopped as Bu Deli focused on building its factory.

Gloftis, Beard and McCartin reckon Bu Deli is just part of a wider trend of better plant-based products as companies begin to grapple with demand.

“I think so,” Beard says. “Compared to eight or nine years ago, but even compared to three years ago.”

“This guy rang me,” Gloftis adds. “I can’t tell you who – but he’s from a massive company, and these people are far from vegans – and he said, ‘Can you please get us a vegan caesar dressing?’

“So it’s happening. It’s a massive, massive market. It’s way bigger than what people think.”