Udderless
A local pizza shop introduces a vegan line of frozen, handcrafted pies
When Evan Byrne’s supplier for vegan cheese unexpectedly ceased operations a couple years ago, the Virginia Commonwealth University graduate with a knack for numbers took matters into his own hands.
“We saw a dip in our sales, so I started experimenting and was like I need to figure this out myself,” says the owner of The Hop Craft Pizza and Beer.
A longtime restaurant worker, Byrne had previously held gigs as a bartender, server and general manager of The Hard Shell. After a stint in accounting, the Charlottesville native found himself wanting to return to the restaurant biz, but this time, as an owner.
In 2018, Byrne founded his Fan pizza shop. It quickly became known as a pitstop for a heady pint and a handcrafted pie. And it also became a popular place for plant-based eaters, earning multiple awards during the annual Vegan 72 food festival. Not wanting to disappoint loyal customers, and also looking to fill a niche in the market, Byrne spent years researching and developing the cashew plant-based cheese before landing on a recipe he was proud of.
“We got better and better with it,” says Byrne of the process. “We started blowing through it and eventually …. people were loving it, and I was tearing through it at The Hop and could not keep up.”
Shortly after developing the cheese, Byrne began networking and connecting with fellow entrepreneurs in the vegan sector. The idea for frozen pizza surfaced after a CEO behind a plant-based business requested a sample of his cashew-based cheese. But Byrne didn’t want to simply send them a block of his cheese, he wanted to showcase its meltable potential — so he also sent her a frozen pizza.
“I said, ‘Let me make you a pizza and you can see how it behaves,’” recalls Byrne. “She liked the cheese by itself but was just blown away by the pizza as a whole and said it was the best pizza she ever had, and that’s what sent me in that direction.”
In February 2022, Byrne introduced his frozen vegan pizza line dubbed Udderless. In the few months since its inception, he has partnered with multiple local markets, but the first to carry his plant-based, bake-at-home product was Ellwood Thompson’s.
“They’re such a good partner to work with, they’re easy to work with, they feature my product and helped get a lot of awareness,” shares Byrne. “They’re my main customer by far and I’ve done demos there. Everybody there has been a dream to work with.”
At the Hop Craft, a designated pizza maker is responsible for crafting the dough for Udderless. The pizzas are par-baked, vacuum-sealed, packaged with the phrase, “handmade by humans,” and then frozen. Currently Udderless offers cheese, vegan pepperoni, a Greek with kalamata olives, red onions, grape tomatoes and baby spinach, and a jalapeno-pineapple variety. While Byrne is starting slow, he says his vision for Udderless is edible expansion.