Vegan Food Fairs
Realfood have a plan on our website of how to run a vegan food fair in your area. Yes people are ready for vegan and not just veggie food fairs. We have had excellent responses to our food fairs. And London Animal Action have run several fairs based on our plan and have also had a great response. They have now set up a group called 'Vegan Campaigns', to run vegan campaigning in London.
These fairs can be run anywhere. We ran one in a rural, animal farming and hunting town. We had a great response. We did no pre fair advertising, only advertising the fair on the day by having people outside the venue running an information stall and others giving out small samples of food, eg Redwood sausages chopped up on a cocktail stick or Redwood slices on butties cut into quarters. And asking people to come inside and try other foods suitable for vegans.
Inside we set the food out like a wedding buffet. We set the food into different types, eg Asian food, Mexican food, Chinese etc. We also have a fake meat section, a cheese section, a chocolate and cake section. The fake food we use are most of the Redwood range, Frys hot dogs and burgers, which we warm up using a microwave. We make the food up into small samples, as we want people to try a range of every food.
We put up an information stall and posters but not ones with scenes of slaughter as we are trying to get people to enjoy the experience not make them sick. These posters have their place but we feel not at the fairs.
We fundraise for the fairs before hand and have a bucket for donations. But we do not push this as again we don't want people to feel pressured when they are at the fair. We have information sheets which we encourage people to sign. This is also a good way of setting up a vegan group or increasing the membership of an existing one.
The only thing I say people organisng a fair that it must be within about 20 - 30 yard max away from where people shop. I would pay extra for a room if it was on the main shopping street even if a room was much less but 100 yds away from the street. Don't save money on this. When people are out shopping it is very hard sometimes impossible to get them to come into your fair if they have to move too fair off their shopping track. People are blinkered when they are out shopping.
We know when a group has run a fair when we get loads of requests for people wanting a vegan buddy. After Coventry ran a food fair the other week we had loads of vegan buddy requests after. The fair was so well attended that they ran out of food before the end. The London group also ran out of food at their first fair and sent people out to the local supermarket for bread salad and humous and made up butties.
So come on people let's see food fairs in every town and city in the UK. They are a great way of putting the vegan message out there. With very little pressure selling, people can see what we eat and see it isn't hard to go vegan.
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Vegan food fairs
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