Review: Flora Freedom

Flora Freedom - Dairy Free Vegetable Fat Spread

Dairy-free vegetable fat spread. Flora finally have a vegan margarine! It's been a long time since Flora was marketed as 'the margarine for men' (true story), and it's just as long that we've been waiting for them to ditch the dairy. Has it been worth the wait?

Review: Alpro Go On Yoghurts

Alpro Go On Yoghurts


New plant-based alternative to strained yoghurt, in three flavours. High in plant protein. These new luxury dessert pots from Alpro are the soya answer to CoYo's premium coconut milk yoghurts. Where they differ is the nearly 8% protein content.

Review: Badger's Dairy & Egg Free Coleslaw

Badger's Dairy & Egg Free Coleslaw


Packaged vegan coleslaw with egg-free mayo from independent producer Badger's. The company has been going for a couple of years, making vegan versions of coleslaw, potato salad and egg mayonnaise. We tried all three at the Lincoln Vegan Festival this week, but the coleslaw was our favourite of the three:

Review: Rysp Snack Crackers

Rysp Snack Crackers

Vegan sourdough 'crisps' for snacking and dips. Winners of Great Taste awards last year. The makers of Rysp go by the name of PlainTasty, and Vicky from the company got in touch to offer us some samples for review. We can never turn down the opportunity for an evening of chips and dips, so naturally we said yes.

Review: Nutcrafter Creamery Cheese


More cashew based vegan cheese, this time from the Glasgow artisan producer Nutcrafter Creamery. We recently reviewed Tyne Chease and thought it would be a good idea to compare it to the competition from north of the border.

Re-Review: Tyne Chease

Tyne Chease

Reformulated and improved artisan vegan cheeses. Now without soy. In our original review of Tyne Chease last year, we had to temper our disappointment that the cheeses weren't as good as we'd hoped they'd be. Ami got in touch last month to offer us the chance to test her new soya-free recipes, and we delightedly accepted!

Review: KoKo Dairy Free Yoghurts

KoKo Dairy Free Coconut Yoghurts

UPDATE: Now including the plain yoghurt

Coconut milk yoghurts which don't break the bank! CoYo and Coconut Co brands have been on the market for several years but have stubbornly stayed eye-wateringly expensive. These yoghurts are in a different price bracket, so do they lose some of the magic?

Review: Besos De Oro


Updated September 2019 - Besos de Oro has been relaunched, please see  - https://alternativeliqueurs.com/

Besos De Oro Vegan cream liqueur

Vegan cream liqueur made with brandy and horchata (chufa milk). The closest thing to vegan Baileys. Besos de Oro, meaning 'kisses of gold' launched in the UK last year after an award-winning debut in Spain in 2014. We had a little snifter to see if it tastes as good as it looks.

Review: iChoc Chocolate

iChoc Chocolate

A range of faux-milk chocolate bars in various flavours. The iChoc brand was launched last year by the German chocolate maker Vivani. The parent company makes vegan chocolate under the Vivani brand name (reviewed here), but they do also sell dairy chocolate, so decided vegans should have their own brand line. Thus iChoc was born as a pure vegan range.

Editor's Picks: Best Vegan Products 2015




Our pick of the ten vegan products that most impressed us this year, from cheese to chocolate, pizza to ice cream and two great egg replacers. It's been another great year for vegan produce, and the hits just keep on coming. Read on for the Editor's picks of the best vegan products of 2015:

Review: Tesco Strawberry & Vanilla Cones

Tesco Strawberry & Vanilla Cones (vegan cornettos)


Vegan cornettos. An unseasonal review, but our Best of 2015 list is coming up, and these may well be on it! These dairy-free cones arrived back in spring, and we took these photos in June, but we never posted the review...

There have been dairy-free cones on the market before, including the two in our review from 2012, but this is the first supermarket own-brand offering. Let's see how they compare:

Vegan Shopper: Ethical Superstore

Ethical Superstore online vegan shop

It's now easy to find vegan food in your local shops, but sometimes you need to shop online to find the brands you love, or those hard to find products. Ethical Superstore is a long established online shop, selling all things ethical, including a huge vegan range. The company sent us a selection of their vegan products so that we could spread the word:

UK Review: Follow Your Heart VeganEgg

Follow Your Heart VeganEgg

At launch, we 'scrambled' to get our hands on it, and our review is now complete. This US import hasn't hit UK shelves yet, but we couldn't resist paying the shipping fees to try this stuff out. Read on to find out if it's worth placing the order yourself:

Review: Tofurky Roast with Herb Gravy

Tofurky Roast with Herb Gravy

US faux turkey brand now widely available in the UK. The more expensive 'Celebration Roast' has been available for a couple of years, but this more economic roast will be more popular. It comes with stuffing and gravy, leaving you just to provide the roasties and veggies.

We gave it an early December dry run to see if it'll make the grade this Christmas:

Review: Le Conserve della Nonna Green Pesto

Le Conserve della Nonna - vegan green pesto

Yet another vegan pesto, but one of the better ones. This time it's the turn of another genuinely Italian brand Le Conserve della Nonna. The company is a 'free from' outfit offering pasta sauces and ragus, bread spreads and conserves, which appear to be all vegan as well as gluten free.

This green pesto is widely available in UK supermarkets so we thought we'd add it to our review list:

Review: BlueRisella 'Blue' Cheese

BlueRisella Vegan Blue Cheese

A vegan version of a creamy soft blue cheese, for hot or cold use. BlueRisella is a flavoured version of CreamyRisella, the vegan soft cheese from the makers of MozzaRisella. Rather than mould, it's flavoured with seaweed, in the form of nori and ulva. Does it taste anything like blue cheese?

Review: Tsubi Soup Instant Miso Soup

Tsubi Soup Instant Vegan Miso Soup

Vegan Super Powered Soup, with miso and no chemical additives. Tsubi Soup was started by Tsubasa Nishitani (Tsubi), who hails from Japan/Australia, after she couldn't find vegan miso soups that were free of MSG and other nasties. Tsubi got in touch with us and offered us some soup for review, and how could we resist?

Review: New Recipe Sheese Slices

Sheese - White Cheddar Style Slices (new recipe)

Sheese has been reformulated, for the better. We were never very fond of the old recipe, with the taste of vinegar and the texture of soap. This new stuff is completely different, and a lot more like Violife, which arrived in the UK last year and changed expectations for vegan cheese:

Review: Madécasse Festive Chocolate...

Madécasse Chocolate - Hazelnut, Orange & Cranberry


We recently gave a rave review of this Madagascan chocolate, and the company got in touch afterwards to offer us some seasonal flavours with a festive twist. Blogging's a hard life sometimes eh. Naturally, we snatched their hand off, so here's our review of the Hazelnut and Orange Cranberry flavour bars.

Review: Quorn Vegan Meat-Free Pieces

Quorn Vegan Meat-Free Pieces

Our second Quorn review, this time for the chicken-style chunks. After finally getting hold of these, we were keen to try them out, so we set to making both a stir-fry and a thai curry. The meat-free pieces can be used in anything you might use chicken chunks.

Review: Vegetarian Caviar Club Seaweed Pearls

Vegetarian Caviar Club - Gourmet Seaweed Pearls

Red and black vegan caviar, or 'vegan pearls of deliciousness' as the company bills them. These gourmet seaweed pearls are a vegan alternative to caviar (fish roe) and are equally as versatile as a garnish or topping. The company sent us these jars to review.

Review: Quorn Vegan Hot & Spicy Burgers

Quorn Vegan Hot & Spicy Burgers

It's been a long time coming, but Quorn's first vegan products have hit the shelves in the UK. The company's first two vegan lines are some meat-free pieces (review soon) and these spicy chicken style burgers. The clamour to try them out is causing shortages for supermarkets stocking the range, so it's clear there is some pent up demand from vegans who want to find out what they've been missing for all these years.

Review: Sacla 'Free From' Pesto

Sacla 'Free From' (dairy-free vegan) Pesto

Dairy-free basil pesto from the big Italian food brand Sacla. Vegan pesto is no longer a rarity, and we know of half a dozen brands that omit the cheese. Our pesto taste test back in 2012 found four brands, and several more have arrived since. This Sacla one was a recent discovery we found in Waitrose:

UK Review: Vegenaise Mayo

Vegenaise Egg-free vegan mayo UK

Another US import that arrived with a buzz this year. Follow Your Heart's egg-free mayo is labelled 'Better than Mayo'. The range available in the UK includes plain, organic, soya-free and grapeseed oil varieties. The standard and organic versions are soya based, combining soybean oil with soy protein. How does it compare with Plamil and other UK mayos?

Reblog: Win for Vegan Protein Powders

The Reviews.com team at work
The Reviews.com team at work

Reviews.com reviewed 697 protein powders, and vegan powders won 2 of the top 3 places. This is great news for validating plant-based protein supplements. The powders were evaluated for taste, texture, nutritional quality and a strict set of criteria for additives:

Review: Madécasse Chocolate

Madécasse Vegan Chocolate

New chocolate brands come and go, but rarely do we say oh! this is good! This chocolate is Fair Trade with a difference - they don't just buy fair-trade cocoa, but also make the chocolate over there too. The Brooklyn based company makes all of its chocolate in Madagascar, employing over 200 people. Of their 6 product lines, only 1 isn't vegan.

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.