18 Apr Coughlans wins Vegan-Friendly accreditation

Coughlans Bakery’s outstanding vegan credentials have been recognised by the Vegan-Friendly organisation.

As well as awarding Vegan-Friendly certification, the non-profit group which raises awareness of veganism through its events and projects, has named Coughlans as their Chain of the Month, saying: “We are so proud to have them on board our certification program, as a Vegan Friendly Certified business and can’t wait to see them continue to grow!”

Vegan-Friendly certification means Coughlans can use the official Vegan-Friendly labels on its products.

Sean Coughlan, owner of Coughlans Bakery, said: “Way back in 1937, our lovely grandparents, Jack and Elsie Coughlan founded our family bakery business. We are now in our third generation with our grandad teaching our dad and our dad teaching us the skills of our trade. It’s lovely to know that we are still using skills that our grandad started.

“Everything we make is handmade by us. We have 27 shops mainly in south London/ Surrey and a few now in Kent too. We’ve opened four new shops since the start of the pandemic too.

“Our vegan journey started about seven years ago when one of my daughters had an allergy to dairy and I have to admit to being totally unaware of the vegan world up until then. I dabbled with recipes to try and remove dairy and then saw a newly formed local vegan Facebook site asking for members so I joined mainly wanting to learn more. I was blown away and quickly started our journey of ‘veganising’ our recipes and rewriting new ones.

“More than 97% of our entire range is vegan, which is a huge change from nothing only seven years ago. We’ve had so much support and encouragement along the way from so many and I will name a few who have taken their time to support us and been great support to lean on for honest feedback. Thanks to Romesh Ranganathan, Jasmine Harman, Esme Carr, Jess Greenash, the team at the Vegan Grill that sadly is no longer open but taught and helped me understand our new world and really helped educate us for our journey, I’ll be forever thankful to you all.

“Little did I know when I started this journey that my own habits would totally change but I’m so thankful fate dealt me this card and opened my eyes. We will never stop creating new exciting goodies so watch this space.”