A vegan chippie opened its doors in East London to meet demand
ADVERTISEMENTThere's nothing fishy about these vegan "fish" and chips.
A chippie owner, with restaurants around London, started serving vegan fish and chips in March this year to see how it went down in his normal restaurants — but didn’t expect his creation to be so popular.
"We thought we'd produce something vegan and see how it goes. It went really well, so we introduced a full menu," Sutton said to Reuters.
Sutton and Sons has opened the doors this week to London's first dedicated vegan chippie.
It means the entire kitchen, including the deep fat fryers, are meat and dairy free.
What's in 'fish'?
There is no fish, of course.
Daniel Sutton creates them from banana blossom marinated in seaweed and sea plant samphire to give it a fishy taste, then deep fried. The vegan "prawns" are made of Japanese potato starch and are battered and served as scampi.
Sutton said "it's not cheap" buying vegan-friendly ingredients. The vegan fish will set you back £5.50 (€6.18) per serving. If you don’t fancy the vegan "fish" there are vegan burgers and sausages also on the menu.
Europe and veganism in numbers
Germany pips the UK when it comes to who spends the most on vegan packaged foods, totalling $452.09 million (€391 million) of the market value of packaged vegan foods. The UK spent $373.3 million (€323 million) in 2015, according to market research portal Statista.
Eighteen per cent of vegan product introductions in 2016 occurred in Germany — second after the US.