But Why Vegan? But Why Not?

It was a cold start in late July, leaving a wintery Wellington to head to an even more wintery Christchurch, having to scrape thick ice off the hire car on our arrival. But I was on a mission to interview New Zealand’s Outstanding Food Producer Awards winner Nel Vincencio, the mastermind behind Mind Your Temper, and no amount of ice or snow was going to stop me!

Nel is a force to behold, conjuring up pure magic in his pocket-size premises, a mere stone’s throw from Christchurch airport. Hailing from Malabon, a metro city in Manila, Philippines, and originally schooled in computer science, things all changed for Nel when he accompanied his grandma on a trip to Seattle, USA in 2005 to visit one of his uncles. Fresh out of university, with no job in the Philippines, and a degree that had made him realise he did not want to work in an office, he had nothing to loose.

In his words, as a young, naive Filipino, fresh into America and unsure of what he wanted to do, he saw a wealth of opportunity. Feeling inspired, Nel asked his uncle if he could help out at his restaurant and small bakery, and it wasn’t long before he discovered a true love of cooking and baking, gleefully telling his uncle he had decided to embark on a bakery and pastry course, right there in Seattle. “I think it’s crucial to do baking and pastry school or work for a true professional in that, if you really want to learn. You don’t need to do it, but there is an advantage and some fundamental things you learn…plus I really enjoyed it…” he tells me excitedly, that passion still totally alive as he looks back so fondly on his time in Seattle.

That passion and drive kept him going through some major struggles during his time in America. English was not his first language, he was listening to everything, absorbing, and trying to convert it all to a Filipino mindset. He was also completely unaware of quite how hard it was to obtain a US work visa. After he completed bakery school he was entitled to work for a year on his student visa. He worked 3 jobs relentlessly, 7 days a week no days off for a year, not just to learn, but in the hope that this would be enough work experience to earn him the coveted work visa. He absorbed any and all information he could from that time, and grabbed every opportunity presented to him, unsure of what the outcome would be at the end of it, but knowing he had to try. But as the words of Roman philosopher Seneca go “Every new beginning comes from some other beginnings end”, the work visa was not forthcoming, and Nel returned to Malabon in 2009.

Back in the Philippines a restless Nel was soon seeking his next adventure and new challenge. New Zealand piqued his interest, and he tells me with a chuckle that he initially thought it was part of Europe. After some googling, learning the true location of the place, its cleanliness and Lord of the Rings movie locations, he tells me he had decided this was to be his next big adventure.

Moving to Christchurch in 2012, in true Nel style he sought out another bakery to work at, this one with many vegan co-workers. They started making vegan baked goods, croissants with vegan butter from scratch. He was surprised, not only about croissants made with butter – which wasn’t a thing back in the Philippines – but also that such items made with vegan alternatives to dairy ingredients could taste so good, noting even the consistency was sometimes hard to tell the difference. Several years passed, each one bringing some delicious new vegan creations. But as Covid approached and his work dried up at the bakery, Nel began researching business opportunities and the idea of chocolate came to him. A somewhat ironic move he tells me with a chuckle, given he initially saw chocolate as messy in his pastry school days, even stressing to his lecturer at the time that he would never work with the stuff. Now he admits he appreciates chocolate should be messy, noting it was that same lecturer that stressed back to him “…chocolate is only messy if you don’t feel it, and you don’t know it, it’s not about the temperature, you have to feel and understand the chocolate for it to truly work…”.  

It was during those early days of lockdown, researching decorated and layered bonbons, that he discovered the less messy, more artistic side to chocolate, triggering the dormant artist within him. When he was younger another uncle used to take Nel and his siblings to proper art classes in the Philippines which he always thoroughly enjoyed, but never saw creating art as a way of making money and paying the bills. These chocolate bonbons however, could be an opportunity to do just that…it was in this moment Mind Your Temper was born.

The business didn’t initially start as a vegan chocolate company, this unusual decision happened organically around 3-4 months in, despite the fact that neither Nel nor his partner Sharlene are vegan. Those early days at Mind Your Temper were both messy and challenging he admits, and product development didn’t always go according to plan. It wasn’t just learning the ways of chocolate, but finding people to try the products, especially when they moved to vegan was quite a challenge, mainly due to the hesitance towards vegan food and lack of plant-based options and alternatives for chocolate back then.

Part of Nel’s drive for 100% plant based draws on his deep passion for sustainability, using Trade Aid in the beginning for his couverture chocolate. Once Trade Aid stepped away from chocolate supply in New Zealand Nel was on the hunt for a chocolate maker that shared his sustainability values. He approached Johnty of Lucid Chocolatier, even visiting his manufactury deep in the Wairarapa and being blown away by what he saw. Now he sources a unique couverture blend directly from Johnty for his shells, and single origins for his fillings. It’s so heart warming to see a chocolatier so enthusiastic and passionate about the supplier of his couverture chocolate, this really is 100% what the chocolate industry should be all about – building and maintaining those connections.

And what concerns him most these days? It’s the fear of big decisions. Especially with the unknown of how those decisions will impact the business in the long term, coupled with the uncertainty of ingredient market prices at present. Cacao pricing being the main concern, luckily for Nel running a 100% vegan chocolate company means he is not impacted by the current sky high dairy prices presently impacting NZ produced butter and cream, which hopefully means he will not have to put his prices up…for now.

Despite his fears, he still has high hopes, great ambitions and a fine selection of wholesale accounts and chocolate making classes keeping him busy and the workshop humming. I can tell it is the classes that bring him the most joy though, as he enthuses he always wanted to be a teacher and has a strong desire to teach people, loving the excitement and joy on peoples’ faces when they see their finished product – a perfectly glossy bonbon tapped out of its mould! And it’s just as well Nel enjoys these classes so much, given he never anticipated quite how popular they would be, nor how often they would sell out!!

For Nel, his chocolate journey with Mind Your Temper is not about the money, though that certainly plays a part, despite the fact he tries hard not to think about it too much. It’s about the people, not just the customers, but people right the way through the chain. That human connection through contribution, collaboration, and in his words “trying to be useful”. This is a very Nel approach; a strong desire to bring benefit and positivity to both the chocolate industry and wider society, all the while introducing everyone who discovers his products to the wonderful world of chocolate, bringing them along on that journey and re-igniting the child within them.

His closing words when I ask him what his one piece of advice would be for anyone embarking on a similar journey? Be open minded, don’t be afraid of a challenge or to try something new. When people ask him “But why vegan?” his answer is always “But why not?”.

Photography as always by my incredibly talented husband samallen.co.nz