Veganuary may be over, but small businesses like Vausages, Perfect Samosa, Yau’s, Vegan House Foods, GZ Delights and Bamboo Street Food have still came together to showcase their vegan food at the Vegan Market UK in Rotunda Square, Birmingham on 7th February. The vegan market took place between 10 am and 5 pm.
The Vegan Market UK started in Cambridge in 2016 and went onto appear in towns and cities such as Chester, Derby, Hitchin, Leeds, Northampton, Nottingham, Oxford, Sheffield and many more locations. The Vegan Markets UK was founded by Lewis Beresford in Cambridge.
After proving very popular amongst people around the country, Vegan Market UK comes to Birmingham to show Brummies a variety of vegan food from vegan hot dogs to vegan samosas. As well as supporting small vegan businesses.
The events manager, Ian Prenrose said “the good thing about buying from a vegan markets is you’re supporting small traders who are dedicated to their veganism, so every pound you give is not going into a large cooperation that are investing in live animal exports”.
Vegan couple, Zerline Long and Reiss Seymour, who run Vausages, a vegan hot dog company which make their sausages out of quinoa. There are variety of options such as the traditional spin on British Cumberland, the Jamaican BBQ Jerk, Spicy Mexican Chorizo or the Indian Chennai Curry. Zerline talked about their journey creating their vegan hot dog company, “it was difficult as we were doing it off our own intuition and we both had backgrounds in hospitality, so that helped a lot”.
Another vegan company present at the Vegan Market UK Birmingham event, was Perfect Samosa. Kay and Sanya Wadud showcase an alternate take on samosa through ingredients like butter beans and pumpkin. The mother-daughter duo felt their business venture is “very much about women empowerment” as they are “not restricted by rules and regulations”.
Many small businesses at the market began their companies with gluten free and progressed to developing into a vegan brand, like GZ Delights. Golnaz Pourkashani, owner of GZ Delights, “started [her] business as a gluten free company” and “wanted to develop healthier alternative vegan baked goods”.
Philip Yau, co-owner of vegan Chinese sauce company, Yau’s, shared his approach to vegan food.
He said “how can we get the same result but take a different pathway’ as well as ‘tick all the boxes’ like Vegan and Gluten Free. Philip Yau co-owns his company with his wife Bonnie Yau.
The Vegan Market UK will move on to do markets across the country, from Hitchin on February 15 and Leeds on February 16.
It can be said the interest in veganism has escalated due to large corporations like Greggs and KFC introducing vegan options within their menus. However, speaking to many small vegan businesses through the market, I was able to understand the growing interest in vegan food and the reason for their passion in the industry. As we meet ourselves in an ever-expanding climate crisis, we see ourselves exploring alternate avenues of consuming food in our everyday life which are healthier, environmentally friendly and most importantly tasty!
Report by Anisah Vasta
anisah journalist 