Animal Planet has started shooting a new 12-episode reality show about owner Danielle Konya. Tentatively titled "Sweet Avenger," it will run this summer.
The show will follow Konya as she keeps up with the thriving bakery, which sells from its Linden Street location and ships desserts to more than 100 restaurants from New York to Virginia. It will also show how she juggles being a single mother to an adopted teenage daughter.
Consider it a hip version of TLC's popular "Cake Boss" — with a message.
As a vegan baker, Konya doesn't use butter or eggs. She believes that factory farms that produce those ingredients are harmful to animals.
"For me it's 100 percent about animals," the 1993 Northampton High School graduate said Wednesday in an interview at Vegan Treats. "I believe all living beings are sentient and feel pain. Compassion starts in the kitchen."
Lehigh Valley residents have appeared prominently in recent years on a number of reality TV shows, including "American Idol," "Project Runway" and "Teen Mom 2." But "Sweet Avenger" may well be the most prominent series based in the Valley. Animal Planet, one of the top 30 cable channels, reaches 97 million homes.
The show also will feature Konya's co-workers, who include her mother and head baker Vicki Mowery and best friend and bakery manager Sarah Bilotti.
Konya was contacted last summer by an Animal Planet producer who came to Bethlehem to do a test shoot.
"They loved it here," Konya said. "They thought it was a great vibe."
Sara Helman, director of development for Animal Planet, said the channel wanted to do a show that highlighted a vegan baker who believed in helping protect animals.
"We did a wide search and quickly found Vegan Treats since it is a popular and widely acclaimed vegan bakery," she said. "When we saw the first video clips of Danielle Konya, we were immediately won over by her bold look, fierce passion and strong sense of family.
"And her treats wowed us. She sent over some of her peanut butter bombs, which are extremely delicious."
Animal Planet hasn't announced when the show will start airing this summer.
A crew has filmed two episodes and this weekend will film another as Konya interviews potential pastry chefs. She says it's been an adjustment getting used to having cameras following her everywhere.
"They dive really deeply into my personal life," she says.
The show follows her life as a single mother raising her daughter Britny, 18, who is a vegetarian and has helped at the bakery much of her life.
The series will show her baking for galas and events for musicians in New York City.
Konya became a vegan at age 17 after seeing a lobster being boiled. She started Vegan Treats in 1998 as a wholesale bakery and opened her retail store in 2005. She wants to prove that desserts made without eggs, milk or butter can be just as good, or better than, traditionally made desserts.
