UK Review: Vegan Gourmet Cheese Shreds

Follow Your Heart - Vegan Gourmet - Cheese Shreds


Follow Your Heart's pre-grated vegan cheese has recently been more widely available in the UK, including in our home town of Nottingham. We grabbed a bag each of the Cheddar and Mozzarella flavours for our review. Is this another US import you should seek out?

UK Review: Tofurky Sausages

Tofurky Vegan Sausages


US imports are now more widespread in the UK, but is it worth seeking Tofurky sausages out? We bagged four packs last month (while it was still summer...) and gave them a try. We grilled, boiled and fried them all to see if they're any better than UK and European brands:

Review: Tyne Chease

Tyne Chease vegan cheese

You've heard of Kite Hill and Treeline nut cheeses? Tyne Chease is the UK's version. Having never tried the American cheeses we're not going to compare, but the arrival of Tyne Chease has generated a lot of excitement, so let's see if it's any good. We sampled the Classic and the Garlic & Herb hard cheeses, along with the Soft Macadamia:

EDIT: THIS REVIEW IS OUT OF DATE. PLEASE SEE OUR 2016 REVIEW OF THE REFORMULATED AND IMPROVED TYNE CHEESES:


New: Violife 'Prosociano' Vegan Parmesan

Violife 'Prosociano' Vegan Parmesan

Out with the shaker, in with the grater! At last, a big wedge of pungent vegan parmesan to grate on your pasta! There have been vegan parmesan substitutes for years, but few in block form, with most sold in shaker pots. The Violife cheese brand is now a firm favourite, so it's only right they should take up the parmesan challenge. 

New: 'Nothing Fishy' Algae DHA Omega 3


Forget fish, 'Nothing Fishy' are farming sustainable algae to get Omega 3 direct from the source. Fish don't actually produce omega 3, they get it from krill, who get it from algae, which means vegans can too. These new supplements are made with cold pressed algal oil. Nothing Fishy sent us a pack to try out:

New: "Lots of This, None of That" Chocolate


Plamil have launched a new UTZ Certified line of faux milk chocolate, with reduced sugar. The Plamil brand is hidden on the back of the pack, with the "Lots of This, None of That" branding adorning the front. The company sent us a few bars over to check out, so let's get chocolatey:

Review: 'Natural Cool' Frozen Vegan Pizza

'Natural Cool' Frozen Vegan Pizza

Bake at home dairy-free pizza with vegan cheese and vegan pesto. German brand Natural Cool is a frozen food specialist, but beware, it's not a vegan or even vegetarian brand. This pizza is available in pesto or peperoni (spicy vegan sausage) flavours. Is it better than the offerings from UK and US producers?

Vegan Shopping: Google Shelf View...




You know sometimes you have to travel to do your vegan shopping? Wouldn't it be handy to have a look around your destination shop before you get there. You might know about this already, but Google Maps offers a 'See Inside' feature as part of their Street View service. A great example is this one of Out Of This World in Nottingham (embedded Streetview - try it).


Review: Koko Dairy-Free Spread


New, from the makers of Koko coconut milk, a margarine / spread made with coconut oil. There are lots of vegan margarines on sale in the UK, but most are very similar. They no longer contain hydrogenated oils, but most still use a blend of palm oil and sunflower oil. This one is different:

Face Off: Easter Bunnies Go Head to Head



Lindt and Aldi chocolate bunnies came to visit this Easter, so we put them head to head. We've reviewed the Aldi Choceur bunny before, and awarded it full marks (for the price), but how does it compare to a Lindt bunny that costs 3 or 4 times as much?

Review: Yu Fruit Chews


100% fruit based snacks, high in fibre with no added sugar. Now in new shapes and packs. If you're looking to wean yourself off jelly sweets in favour of something less sugary, these fruit chews could help. They're basically dried fruit made to look like sweeties.

Book Review: The Fresh Vegan Kitchen


New recipe book from vegan street food pioneers and founders of Wholefood Heaven, David and Charlotte Bailey. The book includes cooked and raw food recipes, and focuses on Asian, Indian, Spanish and Middle Eastern dishes, both sweet and savoury. It's a beautiful hardback book, but do the recipes deserve the glossy presentation?

New: Hotel Chocolat 'Milk-Free Milk Chocolate'


Vegan easter egg made with almond milk. This new No Dairy chocolate range has launched this week just in time for Easter. It's not labelled 'dairy-free', but it is labelled vegan. Hotel Chocolat have eschewed rice powder and soya to replace the milk, in favour of almond powder, something we haven't seen before.

Review: Amisa Vegana Gouda Style Cheese


Organic vegan grated cheese with coconut oil and lupin flour. With Viotros, the Greek cheese maker, now doing contract manufacturing of dairy-free cheese, we're seeing a lot of very similar vegan cheeses on the market. Veganic, Violife, Jeezini and even Field Roast's Chao are all variations on the same product, and Amisa have joined in the fun too:

Review: Astonish Cleaning Products

Astonish Cleaning Products are Cruelty-Free and Vegan

Vegan certified, cruelty-free and British made. Ideal for an early spring clean. The Astonish marketing team sent us a selection of products to review - the Oven & Cookware Cleaner, the Floor Cleaner and the Anti-Bacterial Cleanser. The early new year sunshine put us in the mood for the spring clean:

Review: Almond Dream Ice Cream

Almond Dream Dairy-Free Ice Cream

Dairy-free, made from almond milk, by the Rice Dream people. Velvety Vanilla and Mint Chocolate Chip. We finally found some of this in a Little Waitrose, but not the two most exciting flavours - the Praline Crunch and the Salted Caramel were not stocked unfortunately. We'll add those when we find them, but does Almond Dream live up to the hype?

Review: VBites Turkey Style Goujons

VBites Turkey Style Goujons. Vegan

Vegan party food from the 2014 Festive Range. We got these in as a sort of Boxing Day thing, as naturally there is no leftover Turkey to use up. These faux-turkey breadcrumbed strips are chilled, with a good shelf life, and only need a quick blast in the oven. They should be ideal vegan buffet food:

Opinion: Ottolenghi versus Tofurky

Yotam Ottolenghi versus Tofurky


I’ve never warmed to Yotam Ottolenghi, the Guardian food columnist and chain restaurateur. Maybe that’s because he’s a meat eater who did the ‘vegetarian’ column in the Guardian for a while, or because his recipes don’t appeal to plant eaters, with their reliance on egg and dairy. After reading his opinions about Tofurky, my aversion has only grown:

Editor's Picks: Best Vegan Products of 2014



Our pick of the ten vegan products that most impressed us this year, from yoghurts to ice cream, burgers to chocolate, crisps to spray cream. We concluded last year, that 2013 had been an exceptional year for vegan produce, and maybe we haven't seen quite as many great launches in 2014. How far we've come in the last decade though, that we have to pick and choose from so many good vegan foods. Read on for the Editor's picks of the best vegan products of 2014.

Review: Booja Booja 'chilled selection'

Booja Booja - Chilled Selection - Chocolate Truffles

New sophisticated mini boxes of truffles in bright and vibrant colours that ditch the old fashioned styling of the traditional lines. These chocolates are sold chilled - that is you'll find them in the dessert chiller at Waitrose or in your local wholefood shop. The fridge treatment is necessary because of the new 'delicate' flavours:

Vegan Christmas: Elizabeth Shaw Gingerbread Crisp Chocolates

Elizabeth Shaw - Gingerbread Crisp - Dark Chocolates

Limited Edition honeycomb crisp chocolates, perfect for the festive season. These dark chocolates are much more versatile than the mint ones, which are usually sidelined as after dinner chocolates:

Review: Ethicoco Oat Milk Chocolate

Ethicoco Oat Milk Chocolate

Faux milk chocolate, made with oat milk instead of the usual rice milk. Ethicoco are a startup bean-to-bar producer making all-vegan all-organic fair trade chocolate, from imported beans. The guys at Ethicoco were kind enough to send us a couple of sample bars for our review... and we're excited about it..

Review: The Mighty Burger Co - Original Burgers

The Mighty Burger Company - Original Flavour Burgers

Bristol startup making gluten-free vegan burgers. We've been on the lookout for these since they launched earlier in the year, and this pack of two burgers arrived with the Vegan Tuck Box in November:

Review: Lakeland 'Experichef' Agar Powder

Lakeland 'Experichef' Agar Agar Powder

Not flakes, but powder, just like all those recipes by Isa and Miyoko require. In the UK you can buy agar flakes in any wholefood shop, but finding the powder usually means buying online. Lakeland's Experichef range includes xanthan gum (also used by Miyoko for cheese making), plus this agar agar. We tested it out on a cheesecake:

Review: Omni Superfood

Omni Superfood vegan protein supplement

Vegan protein powder and nutritional supplement with hemp and pea protein, maca, lucuma and MSM. It's natural, raw, organic and is low fat, low sugar and low calorie. The makers claim it supports your natural digestive, immune, reproductive and muscle systems. Available in separate versions for men and women. This is a review of the men's version...

Review: Hraska Gluten/Egg Replacers

Hraska gluten free flour blends

Yep, these mixes function as both egg and gluten replacers. If you think about it, egg and gluten both provide structure in baking, and Czech firm Hraska have developed products that do a similar thing. The UK distributor Bearsted Foods sent us two of the mixes for review - the Flour Mix and the Batter Mix:

Rebrand: Freedom Mallows

Freedom Mallows vegan/vegetarian marshmallows

The UK's favourite veggie marshmallows have had a facelift. The sloth is Freedom Mallows' new mascot, replacing the bunny rabbits from the old packaging. The massively improved branding should help make these mallows go mainstream, and yes - it finally says VEGAN on the front of the packs!

Vegan Life: The Vegan Police



The latest Vegan Life magazine has a great article entitled 'Naughty but Nice' about a vegan baker being lectured by the Vegan Police. Using sugar, eating vegan convenience food, or baking indulgent vegan cakes isn't 'vegan' enough for them. We've come across this before in the comments we get here at Veganoo. When we review vegan sweet treats we'll often get comments such as 'why are you reviewing this junk food??"


Happy 21st: Ethical Wares



UK vegan shoe company Ethical Wares have been trading for 21 years this year, which is a long time for a Vegan business. To mark the milestone, the company have produced an anniversary video, which we're happy to share!

Review: Parmezzano Vegan Parmesan

Vantastic Foods Parmezzano - vegan parmesan

Another parmesan-in-a-can option for your dairy-free pasta topping. The latest in a growing line of these type of products, this Vantastic one is based on soya flour. We've seen cashew and coconut used in recent alternatives, so this one is one of the more 'conventional' offerings: