8Feb

Plantbased Exmouth

Towns and cities around the UK are taking part in a vegan revolution.

It feels as though I am posting one entry a week about a new vegan shop or cafe opening somewhere in the country.

Next up? Exmouth!

Exmouth is a coastal town in Devon, a region situated in the south west of England. It isn’t a huge town, but they certainly seem to have enough people to support this brand new vegan business called Plantbased.

I reached out to Plantbased co-owner Ash Haines to find out what they do, why the do it and how business has been since they have opened their shop/cafe.

Here is the lowdown:

Our shop is called Plantbased Exmouth and we are a 100% vegan cafe also selling vegan retail items.

We decided on the name Plantbased after some deliberation as initially we wanted VEGAN in the title somewhere because we are so passionate, but we had to reign ourselves in and think about who we were targeting. We wanted to target existing vegans but also appeal to non-vegans too, and we thought the word vegan in our name may very well put some people off, thinking the cafe wasn’t suited for them.

So we decided on Plantbased Exmouth as it really has several perceptions to it. Firstly, plant based is of course another way of describing being vegan, but it can also be interpreted as being healthier food, healthier options and we thought with that, we may be able to attract a wider range of folk. The food we offer is simple vegan food, soups, chilli, pizza, raw salad, mock meat rolls, and what in our first week is doing amazingly well, a toasted avocado salad sandwich.

We also offer a vegan cream tea, cupcakes, cookies and other beautiful sweet treats. We make fresh squeezed fruit and veg juices and smoothies, too.

The retail side offers some vegan convenience foods such as biscuits, sweets, crisps and other snack foods. Ice creams, pies, mock meats etc. We also offer body care products such as the Heavenly Organic range along with animal friendly household products such as laundry detergent, all purpose cleaners, soaps, etc.

We wanted to open the shop as we are passionate people and believe that being a vegan is not a chore, or a hassle. We show people that vegans can eat ‘normal’ food and good healthy food can be tasty and sustainable!

We decided on most of our products with the idea of them being quite transitional foods, in the way that, if people are interested in becoming vegan, they can do it more ‘gently’ I suppose, than thinking all they have to eat is raw fruit and veg. If someone comes into the cafe and decides on a ‘chicken’ salad roll for their lunch, instead of going to a supermarket, or deli and buying an actual chicken roll, then that is one less animal product being sold which I think would be great.

If one person walks into the cafe and buys lunch at ours and then later decides to become vegan then that would be simply amazing, and that is why we are doing this! We also wanted to open the cafe as we struggle to find any eateries in the area that offer healthier food options let alone vegan options.