Veggies Catering Campaign and Nottingham Animal Rights hold regular free vegan food giveaways in Nottingham City Centre, sponsored by the Vegan Society and supported by many local and national companies.
As local contacts for the Vegan Society and a branch of the Vegetarian Society these events are covered by their charity status, so exempt from Council bylaws against the distribution of campaign literature.
Similar events are organised across the UK by other groups in Animal Aid and Viva’s local contacts networks, as well as worldwide by Food Not Bombs groups.
More information
- Nottingham Vegan Free Food Giveaway diary listing
- Free Food Giveaway reports on Indymedia
- Vegan Outreach Events around the UK (Diary compiled by Veggies).
- Vegan Campaigns Free Food Law briefing (78K pdf document).
- Nottingham Free Food Presentation briefing (32MB Powerpoint presentation).
- Anarchist Teapot Guide to Mass Catering briefing (1.3MB pdf document). Print edition available from Veggies for £1.50+p&p.
The title ‘Vegan Food Fair’ is commonly used for indoor event focussing on food sampling aimed at the general public and new veggies/vegans, with ‘Vegan Festival’ describing more commercial events where the focus is on giving exposure and trading opportunities to the growing number of vegan traders and larger companies catering for the vegan market.
Free Vegan Food Stalls (Animal Aid Information)
One of the most direct methods of encouraging people to eat more animal-free food is to allow them to try it for themselves, which is why free food street stalls are so successful. You don’t have to be part of a local group, as a stall only requires a couple of people and they’re very easy to set up. You’ll find that many people will be keen to try the samples and chat about eating more ethical products.
Information about setting up a free food stall can be found in our campaigning guide (see the Get Active section of Animal Aid’s website) or contact Animal Aid to be sent a hard copy.
As the winter months have been particularly harsh, you might want to consider setting up an indoor stall. Southend Animal Aid held a free food stall with information in their local library, which is a great idea, so please do contact your library to see if you can do the same. Some shopping centres will also allow charity stands – contact Kelly at Animal Aid for help with gaining permission. Other places you might like to approach include health food stores and local branches of LUSH. If you or your group could organise a free food stall for Veggie Month Kelly can sort out free food samples for your stall from Redwood Wholefoods.
Here are some other ideas from a discussion on the VegSoc discussion group:
When we have run veggie stalls we have found foot-sore tired people will take advantage of a small garden table and chairs, which we have taken along, to sit and look at literature – vegetarian magazines, leaflets etc and we also leave a clipboard with paper and some questions and pens for them to write their thoughts and get their names and addresses if they would like more information.
Keep the cardboard outer cartons of veggie food and tape them back up and display them on a ‘What Do Vegetarians Eat!’ Board. This creates interest, whilst the cost is virtually nothing apart from your valuable time!
Following the fresher’s week GiveAway at Nottm Trent Uni on 29th September, the rest of the year will be:
- Veggies Anniversary / McLibel GiveAway on Friday 15th October
- World Vegan Day, on or near 1st November
- A Christmas one, as a direct replacement for the East Midlands Vegan Festival, on or near 11th December
Stop Press Special
To mark the 10:10:10, the Global Day of Doing, we will be offering samples of the Reduced Carbon Vegan Chocolate Cake, featured by the 10:10 Campaign, at the Stuff of Life community festival, on Saturday 9th October 2010.
That makes 11 Vegan Free Food Giveaways during the 2010!