Local Cheese Business Owners Receive PETA Award for Switching to Vegan Cheese

Operators of The Cheese Plate PDX Decide to Quit Dairy-Serving Business, Open All-Vegan ‘Of Roots and Blooms’ Restaurant

For Immediate Release:
August 13, 2015

Contact:
Catie Cryar 202-483-7382

They’ve won rave reviews for their cheese, but now, Carina Rumrill and Nick Dickison—owners of local food cart The Cheese Plate PDX—will receive a Compassionate Business Award from PETA for their decision to swap their dairy-toting business for a new enterprise serving solely tasty vegan foods. The Cheese Plate PDX will close this month, and their all-vegan venture, Of Roots and Blooms, will open later this fall. For their kind decision, the pair will receive a framed certificate and a hefty box of delicious dairy-free chocolates.

“PETA thanks these compassionate entrepreneurs for being in the forefront of a rising trend, as ever-more businesses drop dairy foods in favor of animal-friendly vegan menus,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “Thanks to this decision, more calves will stay with their loving mothers rather than becoming milk-producing machines and more customers will discover how scrumptious vegan dining can be.”

Cows used by the dairy industry are kept almost constantly pregnant by artificial insemination and are bred to produce such unnaturally large quantities of milk that they experience increased rates of infection, such as mastitis. The wear of constant pregnancy prematurely exhausts the cows’ bodies, and the animals are shipped off to slaughter at just a fraction of their natural life expectancy. As PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—points out, in addition to being far less likely to suffer from killer diseases, such as cancer, heart disease, and diabetes, every person who goes vegan saves the lives of more than 100 animals every year.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.