Hyderabad: Since Hyderabad made its space on PETA’s Most Vegan-Friendly Cities in India in 2019, there has been no turning back for the vegan lovers in the city. In just the past few years, the city has witnessed a boom in the brands serving vegan food products and also simultaneously an increasing number of city dwellers adapting the new animal-friendly lifestyle.
Now, bringing all these brands to one platform is the city’s first-ever Vegan Market happening at the Phoenix Arena, Madhapur. Echoed with soulful music and colourful banners, the vegan market holds a very welcoming vibe while also inspiring many towards veganism.
Organised by Rupa Obulreddigari of Alt Mart, a Vegan ecommerce marketpklace and Pranavi Pangnuri of Enya, a dairy alternatives brand, the Hyderabad Vegan Market brings together around 50 stalls with over 30 of them serving exclusively vegan.
“We saw that there were many emerging vegan brands in the city, but sadly not many knew about them or didn’t know how to get their products. Thus, we decided to bring all these budding brands on to the platform so vegan lovers know and buy products from such brands,” says Pranavi Pangnuri.
Chips in Rupa, “We started randomly calling vegan brands and talked to them about the idea of a vegan market and we received positive response. It was surprising to see so many brands working towards encouraging a vegan lifestyle. We also have a few brands which are not exclusively vegan but do have vegan options in their menu.”
While the vegan market had a wide variety of options like – brownies, laddoos, mysorepak made of coconut milk, dairy products, chocolates, smoothies and ice-creams, is was the meatless meat that became the star of the day.
The chicken sandwiches and the egg rice served by Plantarium garnered a lot of attention at the market. Well, the chicken is actually not the original meat but a mix of soy and wheat which gives a meat-like texture – similar to that of chicken, and the egg rice had tofu which looked and tasted closer to egg. The stall also served dahi puri with peanut curd which tasted exactly like that from any regular chat bhandars.
“Gone are the days when veganism was considered to be a sacrifice. Now there are so many options available that one can find no major difference in the lifestyle. There is increasing research and experimentation on making vegan alternatives for many products like meat – chicken, mutton and also several dairy products,” shares Ravi Rudra, a visitor at the market who has turned vegan from 2019.
The pet-friendly vegan market also held an adoption drive to encourage many to adopt stray cats and dogs.
Source: Telangana Today