Vood is the new plant-based meal delivery service you always knew you needed
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A third-generation fruit and vegetable merchant, and the co-founder of XO and ILY walk into a bar.
You may not expect the result to be Canberra’s first plant-based meal delivery service, but Frank Iannelli and Greg Lally are here to change minds, palates and lifestyles.
Meet Vood—the new locally-owned and locally-made plant-based meal delivery service you’re going to want to try.
Offering restaurant-quality, plant-based meals delivered to your home, Vood hits all the modern ethical milestones—made from locally-sourced ingredients in a sustainable way—and takes the work out of cooking.
On the menu are dishes like Eggplant Biryani with basmati rice, eggplant sambal, urkai, cucumber raita and pappadum, Mushroom Gnocchi with creamy corn, leek and shiitake, Pad Thai with tofu and vegetables and a Mexican Bowl with bolognese ragout, salsa and jalapeño pesto.
Vood founders Greg Lally and Frank Iannelli.
Meals start from $14 each and come in single, couple and family portions. Make sure you scroll down to watch the cute introductory videos from XO’s Chef AK Ramakrishna, Corella’s Brady Scholes and Vood’s Head Chef Tamieka Hessenberger.
Greg Lally, whose background in finance and commercial strategy helped XO and ILY become household names, explains that Vood’s origins lie in modern eating habits and preferences.
“We did the research and found that now, more than ever, people are looking to reduce their meat intake and add more plant-based meals to their diet.”
“In parallel, the industry has evolved rapidly to service a growing demand for meal delivery and meal kits, but there are really limited options available for people who are interested in eating more plant-based meals and understand the provenance of what they are eating.”
And who better to partner with for that understanding of provenance than omni-foods wholesaler Alpha Fresh Foods’ Frank Iannelli, whose family roots in the Riverina region and extensive experience supplying hospitality venues with fresh produce gives VOOD’s meals their exceptional quality.
It’s this experience that gives Vood the ability to nail its sustainability goals.
“Too often speed and economic efficiency goals come with an environmental cost,” says Frank. “We are passionate about providing a simple solution, but we have worked incredibly hard to develop a local supply and distribution network to reduce the distance from farm to the consumer’s table. Our meals arrive fast and fresh, but this is not plant-based fast food.”
However, that doesn’t mean Vood’s menu—which will change weekly—will compromise on taste, quality or freshness.
“For us, efficiency and sustainability are our two guiding themes, and we don’t believe that they are mutually exclusive,” says Greg.
“We know that eating more plants is better for our health and better for the environment, but we also found people were at a loss as to how to incorporate plant-based meals that were delicious, quick and easy to prepare and nutritionally balanced. Vood seeks to break down these barriers while ensuring that we do it in the most environmentally sustainable way possible.”
“We have developed our menu around three values—diversity, creativity and curiosity. For us, plant-based cuisine is about opening the aperture to different dishes and methods, rather than closing it. So many amazing cuisines have a focus on plants – from the Mediterranean to South America through central Europe and beyond.”
It’s an exciting new chapter for the duo, who go back longer than people might think.
“Frank and I met in primary school in Canberra and have been friends ever since,” reveals Greg. “Frank’s family has a long legacy in produce and distribution in Canberra and has literally grown up around fresh food and local producers. I took a different route into the corporate world before dipping into hospitality about 10 years ago when I co-founded local restaurant XO and, subsequently, ILY.”
“We have been lucky enough to witness the evolution of the Canberra dining scene over the last 15 years, propelled by the unfair advantage we enjoy having so much high-quality fresh produce grown or produced locally.”
It’s this 15 years of experience that first planted the seed of curiosity for the pair as to how a company could find balance in a plant-based diet for busy people.
“Over time, we have become more and more interested in the interplay between agriculture, food systems and the environment,” says Greg. “We have each discovered the benefits of shifting toward a more plant oriented way of eating, but also the challenges of accessing the information and tools to help you do this amidst all the other demands of a busy life.”
“For us, Vood is about making it easy for our community to discover these benefits for themselves – not by drastically moving to radical diets or fundamentally remodelling the contents of their fridges, but by introducing a few more plant-based meals into their weekly eating habits.”
Starting Vood out of the kitchens of XO and ILY, Frank and Greg quickly realised they were going to need a bigger HQ—a local one that kept food miles as low as possible.
“We started operating out of restaurant kitchens then have expanded twice—to a small commercial kitchen in Braddon and subsequently to a purpose-built facility in Fyshwick,” says Greg.
“It is critical for us that our meals are prepared in the communities we serve to reduce the distance from farm/producer to customer’s table as much as possible.”
Find out more at eatvood.com.au.
Photography: Pew Pew Studio
