Brighton VegFest 2012 News - Part Two

Part Two  (Part One if you missed it) of my 'News from VegFest', from the safety of my sofa, I breathe a sigh of relief, as I tackle a raging food hangover today.


Nakd where very liberal with the dolling out of Nakd bar samples yesterday.  Besides tasting ALL of their 7 flavours yesterday I also tried their new Beond bars.  New because they are now not only raw but organic too.  The berry flavour is a feisty little number.  Full of berry brightness.  Yum.


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Moo Free have VEGAN Easter Eggs. Oh the marching forth of the VEGAN band!

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Brazilian footwear company Jinga are 100% VEGAN

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Algae from Klamath lake in Oregon.  Reported to be extremely beneficial to humankind.  I'd love to see how it's farmed from the lake!

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I Am Natural were showing off their natural toiletries range

Yes, this picture appears twice...blogspot is being a little gremlin this morning. I couldn't remove it.  Weird!

Vegusto have some luscious vegan cheese.

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Kinetic were there with row upon row of great products from the US.  Chia, protein shakes, energy bars, Amazing Grass, and Jason beauty products.

A gorgeous couple of fresh graduates have been winning lots of awards with their range of SUPERFOODS.  Like the furry baobab fruit pictured above.  If you shake it you can feel the powder moving inside.  Yes, it is not ground, it actually is powder inside the pod!  Organic Burst  They had such a great 'business start-up story' I hope to bring you more news of them at some point.




The pioneer behind this skin care company caught my eye too.  Only using raw naturally occurring ingredients in his skin food range.  Raw Skin Food are not only alcohol free products but free of 8 common food allergens too.  The guy who began this company produced the range because out of his own needs and because the market lacked what he needed.  I hope to bring you more news about Raw Skin Food in the near future.

I hung around the inSpiral stand so longer they could be forgiven for thinking I was staff!  Based in Camden with a cafe and with an online store too, they have lots of delicious raw vegan treats.  Their chocolate 'cake' is wicked.  Wicked good and wicked slightly naughty, if you eat too much (oops!).  I put on several disguises so I could keep going back and sampling their kale chips and crackers.  I bought and quickly devoured their raw fudge - unctuous and rich and some of their new chocolate kale chips (too 'sugary' for my taste...ditch the palm sugar, Inspiral!).

On my 3rd visit to InSpiral I consumed a cheery little scoop of their mint choc ice cream.  Made with cashew nuts and lots of body loving goodies like spirulina.  Food that nourishes. Great flavour, the mint was practically zumba' ing on my tongue! Nice.

I purchased some of these buckthorn berries from Marap  VEGANS and non-vegans note - these are a natural source of B12.  They are very tart and you only need a few to do the trick.  I think they'd make a good addition to a chutney.  Experiment on the 'to do' list..

Raw Delights had some, well, raw delights.  Hand made raw crackers and granola. So VERY ....delightful!   Many samples passed my lips! 

I quickly snapped up a pot of this sassy little number.  Olives and seaweed.  Wow!  what a combo. Super excited to make this discovery Tartar seaweed and olive conserve.

There were quite a few caterers and pre-cooked meal producers at the festival.   Lilli Chilli had some fluffy and light steamed chickpea flour cakes.  The flavours and texture was wonderful.  Pillows of Indian spiced sponge.  Yummy Lilli.

 I do kick myself when I see the vegan caterers as I really should be baking for the masses.  That's all to come.  What do they say...?  'timing'.

Loving Hut were there too.  They are great for their fake meats and transitional meat to veggie fayre.  Did you know they did raw food?  I didn't.  I do now!

Lots of buzz about alkaline diets with water filters that alkalize your water (I didn't realise tap and bottled water was acidic).  Live blood tests analysis was getting busy under the microscope.

Farmaround (not a franchise) were touting their ever widening catchment of organic boxes.  They are a local vegetarian company.

 

New Internationalist A monthly magazine which cleverly focus on one each for each monthly publication.  I had a lovely long chat with one of the stand members who was a food anthropologist.  I've not read any of their material so  I signed up for a free trial they had exclusively at the show.

There were lots of animal rights charities there, doing lots of good work. I spoke to Matt from The Monkey Sanctuary (Wild Futures) about their West Country Green Tourism, working money sanctuary. I was flabbergasted to know that owning monkeys as pets is still legal?!! I pray this is swiftly changed and new laws brought into power. Hopefully, I will visit them one day and show my support.

So there you have it.  My review was really only a fraction of the VEGAN wonderland that I swanned around yesterday.  You can see the full listing on the VegFest website .  I was super excited about the amount of vegan companies at the show AND the festival was packed the entire time.  Looks like my prediction for a vegan world by 2035 is on right on track!