In an exclusive interview with CanadianSME Small Business Magazine, Chantal Bekhor, President and Head Chef of VG Gourmet, shares her journey from elementary school teacher to founder of one of Canada’s leading plant-based food brands. Driven by a passion for real, whole-food ingredients and inspired by her experience on Recipe to Riches, Chantal has built a brand that stands apart from conventional veggie burgers—prioritizing flavour, nutrition, and authenticity.
Interview By Maheen Bari
Chantal Bekhor is President and Head Chef of VG Gourmet since its launch in 2016.
Before that she was an elementary school teacher, teaching Math, English Language Arts, Science and Robotics. She graduated from Concordia University with a degree in ECEE (Early Childhood and Elementary Education), after having completed a bachelor degree in Economics and Marketing.
You started your career as an elementary school teacher before launching VG Gourmet in 2015. What inspired you to move from the classroom to the kitchen, and how did your experience on Recipe to Riches fuel your decision to build a plant‑based product line of your own?
My move from the classroom to the kitchen really came from a deep-rooted passion for cooking and baking. Participating on the Food Network Canada show Recipe to Riches was a pivotal experience. Being on that stage, working alongside and being judged by well-known Food Network personalities was incredibly validating. The response to my recipe made me realize that my goal was attainable. The grand prize was to have the winning recipe turned into a President’s Choice product, and I found myself constantly imagining what that would feel like while walking through grocery aisles. When I came in second place, it was devastating in the moment, but it ultimately became the push I needed to build a business of my own.
I have been eating plant-based since childhood, and I never connected with the overly processed veggie burgers available in stores. I would make my own at home using ingredients I loved, especially fresh herbs that reflect how I grew up cooking. Those homemade burgers became something friends and family genuinely enjoyed.
My husband and I eventually connected the dots: the natural product to bring to market was a veggie burger. That insight became the foundation for launching VG Gourmet.
VG Gourmet is very clear that you’re “not about imitation meat” but about real food—fresh vegetables, herbs, beans, walnuts, shiitake mushrooms and even fresh jalapeños. Why are your products different from most veggie options on the market, and what do you want shoppers to understand when they pick up a VG Gourmet box?
Most veggie burgers on the market rely heavily on processed ingredients and are designed to imitate meat. At VG Gourmet, we take a completely different approach. We start with real, fresh ingredients like vegetables, herbs, beans, walnuts, shiitake mushrooms, and fresh jalapeños. We prepare them the same way you would in your own kitchen. We even chop our fresh vegetables and herbs ourselves and grind our own spice blends to create the perfect balance of flavour.
Those extra steps make a noticeable difference. Our products are rich in texture, beautifully seasoned, and truly gourmet. Nothing tastes artificial or overly processed. Instead, they taste homemade, like something you spent hours preparing yourself.
When shoppers pick up a VG Gourmet box, we want them to know exactly what they’re eating. Every ingredient is recognizable, pronounceable, and purposefully chosen. Our goal is simple: to make it easy for people to enjoy more beans, vegetables, and whole foods without sacrificing flavour, convenience, or quality.
Your new Beet Power Burger is the first vegan burger you’ve seen with 19 grams of protein and 10 grams of fibre while still being made from whole foods like black beans and fresh red beets. How did you approach developing this recipe, and what were the biggest challenges in balancing nutrition, taste, and clean ingredients?
The Beet Power Burger was by far the most challenging product we’ve ever developed. It took more than two years and over 100 recipe iterations before I was completely satisfied with the taste, texture, and nutritional profile.
As consumers become increasingly focused on protein and fibre, I wanted to prove that whole-food, plant-based ingredients could deliver both. During my own health and fitness journey, I saw firsthand how challenging it is to find plant‑based protein that isn’t overly processed. I knew this burger had to change that.
The biggest challenge was achieving those nutrition targets without compromising flavour. Many high-protein vegan products rely on artificial ingredients or sacrifice taste. For me, flavour always comes first. I wanted the Beet Power Burger to be rich, satisfying, and gourmet, just like the rest of our lineup.
Balancing taste, texture, and nutrition was the real puzzle. I refused to compromise on flavour, so I kept refining the spice blend. I added warm notes like cinnamon, paprika, and coriander seeds, paired with lemon juice to brighten the beets and create that deep, umami flavour. Every tweak brought it closer to what I wanted: a burger that’s nutrient‑dense, naturally delicious, and completely real. And now it has become consumer’s favourite burger in our line up!
VG Gourmet is now in more than 1,500 retail locations across Canada, including a recent summer launch at Costco. How did you build that kind of distribution as an independent brand, and what have you learned about making plant‑based products both delicious and practical enough for busy Canadian households?
Persistence is everything. We started by literally walking into independent health food stores and asking for a chance. Some said yes, some said no, and some said “we’ll try it, but if it doesn’t sell, we’ll send it back.” We took whatever we could get and kept going.
Fortunately, consumers connected with what we were offering, and the reorders followed. In-store tastings became our most powerful marketing tool! Nothing communicates the difference in our products better than letting people taste them. Some of those customers still keep in touch and call themselves fans for life. That genuinely means everything to us!
As we built a track record, we partnered with distributors who helped us reach major chains — Sobeys, Metro, Farm Boy, Avril, Tau, and Whole Foods. Local marketplaces like Lufa Farms have been very supportive as well. Becoming a bestselling veggie burger in those stores gave us the confidence to approach Costco. We followed up persistently, drove to Ottawa for the meeting, and earned our first summer program, featuring our best seller, Sweet Potato & Black Bean burgers. Getting listed once at Costco is hard — getting invited back for a second year is even harder.
We’re back for year two. For a small plant-based brand with big dreams, that feels surreal and absolutely worth every step of the journey.
When you think about the future of plant‑based eating, where do you see the biggest opportunities for “better, healthier, more gourmet” options—and what advice would you give to entrepreneurs who want to create food products that encourage a more sustainable lifestyle without sacrificing pleasure and flavour?
The biggest opportunity I see is in natural, whole-food convenience. Right now, convenience almost always comes at a cost: a long list of ingredients full of chemicals, and that’s true across categories, whether you’re talking about cereals, bars, crackers, or plant-based products. Consumers are getting smarter about reading labels, and they’re increasingly unwilling to make that trade-off. The brands willing to do the harder work of creating convenience products from real, whole ingredients have a massive opening right now, because frankly, there still aren’t enough of them.
My advice to entrepreneurs starts simple: make food you actually want to eat. Before thinking about market gaps or trends, begin with flavours that genuinely excite you. That personal connection shows up in the product, and it’s what separates something memorable from something merely functional.
From there, look to nature before you look to a lab. The range of ingredients the natural world offers us is extraordinary, and most of it is still underutilized. Leaning into that bounty isn’t just better for the consumer; it’s a more creative challenge, and increasingly, it’s what the market is hungry for.
Entrepreneurs who understand that will be the ones who shape where this space goes next.
Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this interview are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of CanadianSME Small Business Magazine. Our platform is dedicated to fostering dialogue and sharing insights that inspire and empower small and medium-sized businesses across Canada.
