When Percy Pig first hit the shops in 1995, no one could have known he’d soon be a cult figure. Loved by fashionistas and pop stars, Percy has appeared on the catwalk at London Fashion Week and his offspring, Percy Piglets, on UK Vogue’s 2008 hot list as a trend to watch over the forthcoming year.

Although the Percy range has expanded hugely – it now boasts Percy ice creams, cupcakes and even a drink – there was one request that kept coming through: when will you make a vegetarian version of the original Percy Pigs?

Well, that’s exactly what we’ve done with the new gelatine-free Veggie Percy! But it wasn’t a simple process, from start to finish it took us about 3 years to get it right – our early attempts to create a veggie substitute for gelatine just didn’t work.  People giggle when I tell them that we had a team of scientists working on it – but it’s true! All in all, it took us 23 attempts to find the perfect recipe for the gelatine substitute.

Beef and pork gelatine have traditionally been used in sweet making, and that’s because it’s just so difficult to replicate the bouncy texture. Gelatine tends to be springy in all different directions, whereas substitutes often ‘bounce’ in just one direction. Which basically means: with gelatine you get a proper chew, while substitutes are left lacking.

For the Veggie Percy, we developed a formula using pea protein, which allowed us to mirror the texture of gelatine as closely as possible. We then added the green ear as a guarantee that the sweet is gelatine free. We wanted vegetarians to be able to spot the Percy for them at a glance.

As the product developer on Veggie Percy, I’d love to know what you think of him – so please leave a comment below! I’d be especially interested to hear from you if you’re a vegetarian and this is your first ever Percy experience, or if you’re not vegetarian but just prefer them …