When we started Be Better, the mission sounded impossible: create a plant-based butter alternative that could do everything dairy butter does in pastry.
Not just something “good enough for vegans.” Not a margarine. But a true dairy-free butter substitute for pastry. One that would fold into croissant dough, cream into cookies, whip into buttercream, and melt with the same timing and pleasure as traditional butter.
For chefs, butter isn’t just fat. It’s a tool. It builds structure, gives plasticity to laminated doughs, aerates batters, carries flavours, and melts at the precise moment that makes pastry irresistible. Reproducing that with plants meant respecting every technical role butter plays and matching it. We believe we did it and Phil Khoury who was involved in the validation of the product recipe, agrees: “Be Better is a fantastic pastry fat that works like butter and is made without hydrogenated oils, added colours or flavours.”
The craft behind Be Better
We built Be Better plant-butter the same way chefs refine a recipe: by focusing on detail. Every ingredient was chosen with a purpose, each one solving part of butter’s functionality.
The backbone is shea butter. It’s more than twice the price of palm, but essential. Shea is wild-grown, rain-fed, not irrigated or fertilized. Its water footprint is close to zero. Rich in stearic and oleic fatty acids, shea butter gives our blend a solid fat profile that mimics dairy butter. That means croissants rise, tart shells snap, and puff pastry lifts layer by layer with no compromise. As pastry chef Toni Rodríguez told us: “Be Better gives me the ideal plasticity and performance for laminated doughs, providing a unique flakiness and exceptional volume.”
To balance firmness with softness, we use organic coconut fat. It melts at body temperature, giving creams their richness and buttercreams their smooth mouthfeel. It also makes pastry tender, never waxy. Céline from Cocolico Patisserie said it best after her first lamination: “It’s sooo good. My puff pastry has never been that flaky.”
Then there’s organic sunflower and rapeseed oil. They lighten the blend, improve spreadability, and add elasticity so doughs handle smoothly. Their neutral taste ensures that chocolate, fruit, or spices shine without being overshadowed.
Finally, we matched butter’s natural balance of fat and water. About 20% of our block is water, just like dairy butter. It hydrates dough, creates steam for lift, and keeps pastry moist. Sunflower lecithin holds it all together, while a touch of natural aroma ensures the profile stays clean and balanced. As Francesco Coratella at 5 Hertford Street put it: “Be Better is everywhere in my kitchens, it never lets us down.”
A dairy-free butter that respects tradition
The beauty is not just that Be Better works. It works across every pastry process. Laminating, creaming, whipping, piping, baking: chefs use it as a 1:1 replacement for butter. No new recipes. No retraining staff. No compromises.
Yes, there are small differences. The colour is whiter. The taste is more neutral. But isn’t that true of any butter? Change season, the brand of flour or the origin of fruit, and you’ll adjust. Pastry has always been about fine-tuning. Be Better fits into that rhythm: familiar, but with a twist that excites.
And here’s the twist: this dairy-free butter alternative for baking is cleaner, purer, and more stable than what came before. No palm. No allergens. No hydrogenated fats. No artificial flavours and colours, no gmo. Just a handful of carefully selected fats and oils that mimic butter’s magic while cutting 81% of CO₂ and up to 97% of water use compared to dairy butter.
Proof is in the pastry
This isn’t theory. It’s been proven in bakeries across Europe. Kate Emmett at Jesmond Cake Company, once the a top buyer of an alternative plant-butter, switched to Be Better and declared: “Not anymore. Dumped your ass for Be Better My Friend.”
From croissants that flake higher, to vegan brownies without the greasy aftertaste of margarine, the feedback has been consistent: Be Better isn’t a compromise, it’s an upgrade.
Future-ready pastry
Pastry is tradition. But it’s also innovation. Every chef knows the craft evolves with every generation. Be Better is not about replacing butter entirely. It’s about offering a future-ready butter for pastry. One that works like butter, but without the baggage.
It respects the tradition of the craft while opening the door to inclusion, sustainability, and consistency. It proves that you don’t need to choose between pastry and the planet, between heritage and progress.
And maybe the most exciting part? Seeing chefs rediscover joy in the process. As Amy from Chunk Cookies wrote after testing it: “It worked beautifully in our pastry, and everything went smoothly.” Sometimes, change is that simple.
Ready to find out yourself?
We can talk about solid fat percentages, melting points, and lamination plasticity all day. But pastry is proof on the tray. That’s why we can send you samples, recipes, and technical support to chefs ready to test and change. Put Be Better plant-butter into your laminator, mixer, or oven. Watch it behave like butter. Taste the purity. Feel the similarities, embrace the little differences. Pastry is about perfection in the details. We’ve honoured that with Be Better. Now it’s your turn to make it your own.
