Food company A Good Human is opening a vegan cooking school in St. Petersburg

Don’t call the rainbow-colored food vegan.

Kate Harvey prefers the term “plant-based” to describe the fare she makes under the moniker A Good Human.

“I don’t know why but (vegan has) got this really weird and not great connotation to it,” she said.

The company makes fresh grab-and-go meals, like gluten-free pea pesto pasta with garlicky mushrooms, that are carried by local grocers. And in June, Harvey will move production to a space in St. Petersburg’s Innovation District, where she’ll fulfill her dream of offering plant-based cooking classes.

The 4,300-square-foot space at 1055 Fourth St. S is next to investor Cathie Woods’ ARK Innovation Center, which is scheduled to open in July.

In addition to classes for kids and adults and summer camps, the space will be a deli offering the grab-and-go meals and specialty items like olive oil that comes from the grove Harvey owns in Corfu, Greece. Down the road, Harvey plans to include a champagne bar in the space.

Harvey moved to St. Petersburg from the United Kingdom in 2020 with her husband, John, who owns luxury safari company Opulent Africa. She started A Good Human in 2022, after selling protein bowls and brownies to local coffee shops.

She started approaching grocery stores with her products, and Rollin’ Oats in St. Petersburg was the first to accept a wholesale contract of her meals. The meals are currently produced by executive chef Jen Stewart in a shared kitchen in the Tyrone area, which they are outgrowing, Harvey said.

They have just established a partnership with grocery chain Healthy Edge, which operates stores including Earth Origins, so they are expanding to 14 Florida stores in Sarasota, Winter Haven, Port Charlotte and Ocala.

Harvey also plans to implement the Raw Talent Program, a second-chance effort to help ex-offenders develop kitchen skills. She said being embraced by the St. Petersburg community inspired her to give back.

“It’s important to be able to feed our bodies, look after our bodies, which is where the Good Human name came from,” she said. “We’re human, we’re responsible for looking after ourselves, and making sure that we feed ourselves correctly. We exercise all of those things, but also look after each other, and the planet.”