Plant-Based Burgers are in Full Bloom at Bloom Foods
Bloom Foods puts vegetable-forward burgers on the map
When Chester Chambers and Paige Daniels, owners of Bloom Foods, purchase produce from Sustainable Vegetable Garden, owner Elyzert Ngouelet often tells them, “Don’t eat, feed your body.” Chambers says, “At first, I wasn’t completely sure I understood that. Now I think about it all the time.”
Such connections with local farmers have inspired the couple as they build their burger-focused, plant-based food company that offers both frozen patties to take home and cooked-to-order meals at Urban Harvest Farmers Market and pop-ups around Houston.
For their very first pop-up, which was in November 2019, the pair were planning to serve a purple hull pea burger. Chambers, who earned a degree in chemical engineering from MIT and does the cooking, had been developing a patty using purple hull peas that he’d been purchasing from Gundermann Acres. But when he went to the farmers market the Saturday before the pop-up, the purple hulls were no longer available.
“So we had to scramble and I ended up doing a red bean and sweet potato burger, using their sweet potatoes,” he says. “This is what it means to cook locally.”
Ultimately, the duo would like to source all their ingredients locally. “We want to minimize our supply chains and know where our food is coming from,” says Chambers. But that can be a challenge in the Houston area, where many vegetables and legumes grow well but others are more difficult, especially at a commercial scale. Chambers estimates that right now about 50% of their ingredients are locally grown, while the other half, primarily organic dried beans, comes from around the United States
Supporting local farmers isn’t their only mission. Daniels, who has extensive customer service experience, says they want to create “more awareness about what it means to eat whole foods and be plant-based— separating it from just strictly saying that it’s vegan. Personally, I think that word scares a lot of people.”
Though Chambers began cooking after college, he had little knowledge of plant-based diets or whole foods until a few years ago when he was at a friend’s house and spotted a large book, Healing with Whole Foods by Paul Pitchford. His friend warned him it might change his approach to food, but Chambers was intrigued. That’s when he began exploring plant-based diets. He started shopping at Urban Harvest farmers market, where he’d talk to the farmers about how to cook the vegetables they were growing. Over the course of the next two years, he became a proficient plant-based home cook. Daniels says, “He got really good at cooking beans and grains.”
However, when they ate at restaurants the couple found it difficult to adhere to their plant-based approach, which was stricter at that time. “When I went out to eat it would be difficult to find stuff that worked for me, especially burgers,” Chambers says. “So, I figured there was a gap in the market, and I thought I’d tried to fill it.”
That’s when Bloom Foods was born.
After their first pop-up, they spent the next few months establishing the business, learning what customers enjoyed and how to make the business sustainable. In February 2020, they paused their pop-ups for two weeks to reflect on what they had learned and revise their business strategy. They lined up new pop-up locations for March and planned to increase the frequency from a couple a week to four or five per week. Then, the pandemic hit.
“It was difficult. We had to pivot and do some other stuff to make money,” says Chambers. “But,” he adds, “the pandemic was kind of a blessing because we got a chance to visit farms and practice recipes. During the pandemic we began inventing a new burger every week. That’s some of what’s on our menu right now and what’s to come.”
What’s to come includes a food truck opening this fall, when the duo will roll out new menu items, while continuing to sling their popular orca bean burger and fried oyster mushrooms and spread the word about plant-based foods. “During every interaction, we pass on some sort of information,” Chambers says. “It’s not just a transaction.”
Daniels adds, “I think our menu is really good at creating the opportunity for education. The orca bean patty is great for that because people ask what that bean is. We could have called it something generic like ‘cheeseburger.’ Instead, we’ve left an avenue open for people to ask questions.”
And people do ask questions. According to Daniels, a patron once asked, “Oyster mushrooms? Oysters? I thought you were vegan.” An exchange that became an opportunity to explain what oyster mushrooms are.
Though Bloom Foods’ products are vegan, Chambers notes that “whole foods” and “plant based” doesn’t necessarily mean strictly vegan. He says, “Our company is vegan, but I’m more plant-based. For example, I like cooking a whole chicken for everybody, using all the parts, saving some for stock, and putting a lot of intention and less meat into the food around it.”
It’s the pair’s forte to transform vegetables, grains and legumes into products and dishes that are so good people won’t miss meat. They are eschewing the trend of transforming plant-based ingredients into meat-like substitutes. Instead, they are relying on the vegetables and spices to speak for themselves. “I want to taste flavor,” Daniels says. “I don’t want something that just has a texture to it.”
To help develop those flavors, the couple turned to cuisines from around the world. While visiting farms and coops in Puerto Rico, the duo would venture to beachside restaurants and order beans and rice that featured pink beans, a Puerto Rican staple. Inspired by the experience, Chambers made a pink bean patty topped with persimmon jam and Mexican mint marigold that customers have enjoyed and that will likely find a regular spot on their menu.
Daniels adds, “Doing that burger was an adventure. We drove all over town looking for pink beans. We finally found them at Fiesta and bought the whole shelf.”
Though those beans may have come from the grocery, the heart of their supply chain is still in hands that touch local ground: farms such as Harvest Grain Mills, whose rice is in almost everything they make; Plant It Forward Farms; Flying Saucer Farms, the source for the mushrooms; and Ngouelet’s Sustainable Vegetable Garden. These are the folks whose produce and guidance have helped their business, their burgers and the community that supports them come together. Now, Chambers and Daniels have joined their ranks as vendors at Urban Harvest, where they can offer food and sage advice to their customers, just as Ngouelet has done for them.
Visit EatBloom.com and follow @bloomfoodshtx on social media for information on various pop-ups and where to find their products.
