Meet Calon Tempeh: Our Journey to Making Tempeh in Wales

Who We Are and Why We Make Tempeh in Wales

Quick answer: Calon Tempeh is a small, independent food business in Cardiff, Wales. We make fresh tempeh and tempeh crisps, and we also have sauces. “Calon” is Welsh for heart, and our line is “Protein with a place.”

 

There's usually a moment when an idea stops being just an idea.

For us, it started in a small kitchen. Soyabeans on the counter. Equipment that probably didn't need to be there. Notes everywhere. A few experiments that worked beautifully, a few that definitely didn't, and a lot of questions.

And, of course, a lot of tempeh.

We didn't start Calon because we had everything figured out. We started because we wanted to make something good, something we'd genuinely want to eat ourselves, made with care, a little different, and something we could eventually share with people here in Wales.

So, why tempeh?

Tempeh has been made in Indonesia for generations, traditionally by fermenting cooked soyabeans into a firm, savoury food with a wonderfully satisfying bite. If you've never come across it before, it can look a little unusual at first, a dense, speckled block that doesn't exactly scream eat me.

But cook it properly, and something quite magical happens. Slice it thin, season it simply, fry it until golden and crisp, and those humble fermented soyabeans turn into something else entirely.

That's the part we love. Tempeh doesn't need to be complicated. No long ingredient list, no elaborate technique. Sometimes all it needs is a hot pan, a little oil, some salt, and a good appetite. If you’re new to it, our golden crispy tempeh is the perfect start. 

 

From a small kitchen, one batch at a time

Like most food ideas, ours began with experimentation. Make a batch. Look at it. Taste it. Change something. Try again. And again.

Fermentation has a funny way of teaching you patience, you can't rush it just because you're in a hurry. Temperature matters. Timing matters. Moisture matters. The beans themselves matter. And sometimes, even when you think you've done everything right, a batch just doesn't turn out the way you hoped.

That's part of learning it. So we kept experimenting, kept taking notes, kept asking questions, and slowly, batch by batch, we started getting somewhere. We wrote about some of the wobbles in A Week of Kitchen Mishaps.

Why making it here, in Wales, matters to us

There's something special about making food locally. Not because local automatically means better, it doesn't. But because when you make something yourself, you get to care about the details. You know exactly what went into it. You see the whole process. You can listen to the people who eat it, change things, and make the next batch a little better than the last.

That's what we want Calon to be about: good food, made with care, here in Wales.

More than just a block of tempeh

We're just as interested in what happens when people discover something new. Maybe you've eaten plant based for years and already know tempeh inside out. Or maybe you've spotted a block of it in a shop and thought, what am I actually supposed to do with that?

We've been there too. That's why we're experimenting with different ways to enjoy it, from fresh tempeh you can cook at home, to crispy tempeh snacks for when you just want something crunchy.

We're asking the small, practical questions. How thin should you slice it? How crispy can you actually get it? What spices work best? Does it air fry well? What happens when you put it in a sandwich, a curry, a stir fry, or just eat it straight from the pan before anyone else notices?

We're still finding out. That's half the fun.

Tempeh crisps: the one we worked hardest on

Somewhere in all that experimenting, an idea kept nagging at us. We loved fresh tempeh, but we kept wondering what would happen if we pushed it further. Sliced thinner. Dried differently. Seasoned boldly. Turned into something you could tip straight from a bag into your hand.

So we tried. And as far as we could find, nobody had made tempeh crisps commercially in Wales before. There was no local recipe to borrow, no nearby producer to call for advice, no established process to follow. Just us, a lot of trial batches, and a lot of very honest taste tests.

Getting a bean based ferment to crisp up properly, and stay crisp, turned out to be its own kind of stubborn puzzle. Too thick, and it stayed chewy. Too thin, and it fell apart before it ever reached a pan. Too much moisture left in, and it turned soft within a day. We adjusted the slice, the seasoning, the drying, the frying, batch after batch, until it finally held that satisfying crunch we were chasing.

That mattered to us more than we expected. This wasn't just a new snack. It was a genuinely new product category for tempeh here in Wales, built from scratch in a small kitchen, by people who had never seen it done before and simply worked it out for themselves.

We're proud of that. Not because being first makes something automatically good, but because it means every choice in that bag, the thickness, the seasoning, the crunch, was earned the hard way, through batches that didn't work until they finally did.

If you try our tempeh crisps, you're not just tasting a snack. You're tasting a few hundred failed batches that finally came good, and a genuinely new bit of Welsh food history.

They come in three flavours: Original, Welsh Salt and Black Pepper. You can try Calon Tempeh Crisps here.

Why ‘Calon’?

Calon is Welsh for heart.

It felt like the right name, because this was never just about making another food product. It's about building something carefully, from the ground up, starting small, learning as we go, listening to the people who try our food, and putting a little of ourselves into every batch.

Questions people ask about Calon

What is Calon Tempeh?

A small, independent food business in Cardiff, Wales, making fresh tempeh and tempeh crisps.

What does “Calon” mean?

It’s Welsh for heart.

Where is Calon Tempeh made?

In Cardiff, Wales.

What do you sell?

Fresh tempeh, tempeh crisps in Original, Welsh Salt and Black Pepper flavours, and sauces. See our website for what’s available now.

A Welsh tempeh journey, just beginning

Calon Tempeh is still at the very start of its story. We're small. We're learning. We're figuring things out as we go. There'll be batches we're proud of, and probably a few experiments that don't quite land. There'll be new flavours, new ideas, and, hopefully, plenty of people discovering tempeh for the first time.

We'd love for you to come along for it. We'll be sharing what we're learning about making tempeh, how to cook it, recipes we're testing, experiments from the kitchen, market days, new products, and the occasional mishap.

Because we don't want Calon to just be somewhere you buy tempeh. We want it to be somewhere you discover what you can actually do with it.

So, if you've never tried tempeh before, welcome. If you're already a fan, welcome back. And if you're simply curious what a small food business in Wales is up to with a bag of soyabeans and a rather persistent fermentation culture, you're in the right place.

This is only the beginning. Welcome to Calon.

Protein with a place.