Features
Laurel V Williams
In Trinidad and Tobago, ponche de creme is a traditional Christmas drink, and one brand, Cruz Creme, is gaining popularity for its vegan-friendly varieties.
Cruz Creme is named after Santa Cruz, where the brand began operations under its parent company, The Secret Kitchen, which Shayndel Ayala Lutchmedial owns. Cruz Creme was founded in 2020, during the pandemic.
The businesswoman recalled that the idea came to her and her boyfriend/business partner Jelani Serrette one night while driving. With limited money and many restrictions in place at the time, they wanted to find a way to earn an income. That night, while on the road, the couple started brainstorming and decided to make ponche de creme.
“However, we wanted a challenging experience, and to make it interesting, we chose to take a traditional milk-based drink and wanted to make it vegan. The drinks are egg-free, and we use plant-based milks like soy and coconut.” she said.
“We experimented with a number of flavors at first like plantain, coconut, yeast, barbadian, pumpkin and vanilla.”
They felt that the vegan market was slightly underrepresented in terms of food and drink. To try and fix this, they thought what a great opportunity to “get their sweet little hands into the mix”.
“Eventually, we thought the product was worth sharing with our friends, and we put it to the test. We shared samples in a house, and it wasn’t well received at all…” said Lutchmedial.
“Some people didn’t even want to try the second flavor and others refused to give feedback. That didn’t bother us. Instead, we took their feedback and lack thereof and experimented with the recipe for about a year. We went through a steady testing process and error to get the right prescription.”
In late August 2021, they finally had a recipe they were happy with.
“It was exciting. We took our new samples and shared them with our friends again. This time they loved it,” Lutchmedial said.
“It was at this point that we felt confident enough to launch our product for sale, so plans were underway.”
They settled on three flavors – pumpkin spice, coconut cream and vanilla classic.
Lutchmedial, who has a bachelor’s degree in business management from SBCS Global Learning Institute Ltd, recalled that she and Serrette spent countless hours and efforts trying to perfect the drinks.
Now, friends give rave reviews, and even non-vegans say they love all three flavors.
Lutchmedial said: “Intensive research went into this venture as we’re not actually vegan. We looked for milk substitutes and were forced to make our own vegan condensed milk, something we’d never done before.
“It’s a versatile drink. We have alcoholic and non-alcoholic flavors. People can put it on their cereal, coffee, yogurt or ice cream, for example.”
A coffee shop in Port of Spain, Full Bloom Coffee Roasters, now offers Cruz Creme’s pumpkin spice as part of its seasonal cold brew specialty. The coconut cream flavor was added to the menu in December.
As people became more familiar with the Cruz Creme brand, another business, Half Moon Vegan Ice Cream, expressed interest in a collaboration with pumpkin spice ponche de creme and their locally made vegan ice cream.
“We were excited and jumped at the opportunity, which has since created solid business relationships and several new friendships. Ponche de creme is available from mid-September to early January for personal orders, events, sales with minority and majority,” said Lutchmedial.
The products were sold at a recent market event held at the Lions Cultural Center in Port of Spain. A bottle costs between $120 and $140.
For more information: visit Cruz Creme’s Instagram page @thesecretkitchen868 or email [email protected].
