Vegan Meatless Feast 7" Pizza 207g -
Cheese & Tomato Vegan Pizza -
Ham & Pineapple Vegan Pizza
Vegfest UK Sponsors The Redwood Wholefood Company have been selling their Vegan pizzas for nearly a year now and have no doubt enjoyed a boost in sales from the fuss about horsemeat in our food chain.
It is quite frankly a surprise that no UK Pizza chain has launched a vegan pizza given the 40% increase in interest. Even Pizza Express who were working on this back in 2004 for the Vegan Society Diamond Jubilee haven't yet sorted the problem.
We asked top
London Nutritionist Yvonne Bishop-Weston, ex Operations Director for Cranks Restaurants to think about the issues for a high street vegan pizza.
" The main issue seems to be the mess that working under such tight time sensitive conditions causes means the cross contamination issues are seemingly an endless list. There's bits of cheese everywhere and it's not unheard of to get a bit of extra free chicken or ham in your vegetarian pizza that's fallen off someone elses.
The first step is to make an authentic Italian pizza dough without the whey powder and other milk products typically used in Pizzas by Dominos and Pizza Hut.
You'd then need a seperate production area for making vegan pizzas that is clear of contaminants.Alternatively you could have a seperate quarantined risk area where the main allergens, dairy cheese, meats, fish and nuts are added.
Thirdly you'd need to only cook the vegan pizzas on specially colour coded trays and only on the top shelf of the oven to avoid contamination from risk pizzas higher above.
Finally it would be best to cut out the point where it's practically impossible to avoid cross contamination in a busy commercial pizza kitchen, where they cut the pizza up into segments.The solution would be to just allow the customer to cut their own pizza up at the table with colour coded pizza wheels."
Interestingly the Canadian Pizza franchise Pizza Pizza, who don't add milk to their pizza base, is trending in Google. We wonder if dairy contaminated Dominos Pizza and Pizza Hut will be the biggest loser in the race to please a new generation of vegans and part time Flexivegans if they don't change their basic recipe.
If you are going to order a heap of pizzas for a group of friends you are not going to bother to phone another company for the one or two vegans in the group , you'll just use the company that looks after all their customers won't you? Pizza Pizza seems well placed to steal the fluffy rug from under Dominos and Pizza Hut and knock them off their cheezy perch.
About time! Tim Barford and Vegfest have been shortlisted for a PEAB Award, People and Environment Business Award 
Leading Nutritionist in London,Yvonne Bishop-Weston said “It’s time dietitians stopped suggesting meat is an essential part of the diet, it’s a lie.” Following statistics from Google trends, The Vegan Society , The UK Vegetarian Society and Vegfest UK that reveal a 30-40% increase in interest in vegan diets worldwide Yvonne suggests it’s time health professionals had a little more courage and stopped thinking of vegan diets as restrictive and extreme. “Having your chest sawn open for open heart surgery is extreme, eating more fruits and vegetables is natural, logical and sensible!” she argues.
