Last month I paid a visit to the Good Food and Wine Show to find out about the veg-friendly food options that are commercially available. Alongside the standard appliance displays and industry showroom setups, there were a few stalls run by companies that seem to be making a real effort to be veg-friendly, environmentally responsible or ethical in their production processes.

Mrs May's Naturals, a snack company originating in the USA, was the only company we came across that actually stated on their packaging that their product is vegan. The company representative we spoke to, Hugh, is a nutritionist by profession, and was eager to explain the nutritional benefits of the ingredients in Mrs May's snacks which include nuts, seeds, dried fruits and berries. We tried the black sesame crunch, pom-raspberry crunch, pumpkin crunch and cashew crunch. That's quite a selection of crunches, and they were all really crunchy. Also, they were very tasty. The treats are subtly sweetened with evaporated cane juice, making them moreish but not sickly. Mrs May's was definitely a highlight of the Good Food and Wine Show. The crunch range are available in most supermarkets.

Another company doing their bit to reduce landfill waste are Expresso Packaging. Expresso Packaging's target market is the coffee industry - cafés and coffee vendors, and their range of 100% biodegradable take-away coffee lids, stirrers and spoons are an environmentally friendly alternative to conventional plastic options that are widely available but terrible for the environment. According to Expresso Packaging's literature, the lids, stirrers and spoons are made from plant materials (corn starch) and take between six and 12 months to biodegrade completely. Expresso Packaging are currently working on finding a way of waterproofing paper coffee cups with biodegradable material - currently, all paper coffee cups have a non-biodegradable plastic coating on the inside to ensure there are no leakages. Hopefully, Expresso packaging will find a solution soon.

There were a number of fruit and nut stalls, of note were Australian Pacific Coast Eco Bananas, which were offering boxes of delicious, sustainably produced bananas from Queensland for $2 each - a Good Food and Wine Show special - and which have a particularly...distinctive...logo (see above). There was an Almond Board of Australia stall, featuring a model wearing a dress covered entirely in almonds, handing out cups of almonds to passers-by. There were many olive oil stalls, and a particularly good New Zealand avocado oil company (Grove), all of which were veg-friendly.

Unfortunately, there were relatively few companies that specifically catered to vegans and vegetarians. Of the companies that were veg-friendly, very few explicitly stated this on their packaging and I had to ask the stall holders whether their ingredients contained animal products. Surprisingly, many couldn't say for sure whether their products were vegetarian or vegan. This was a little disappointing, but understandable at a mainstream event aimed at a commercial audience, which probably doesn't consider the vegan market especially viable.

Nevertheless, it was an interesting day, and it was really fun trying all of the free samples! I especially liked the free vodka and wine tastings.