Easy Vegan: a different kind of meal kit putting local first

We are delighted to share our interview with Easy Vegan Founder Jocelyn Light. A great local business committed to local first, we have been lucky to partner with them during our first season, creating a vegan pesto for their meal kits. We hope you enjoy her reflections on what it means to feed our community as much as we did.

What inspired you to start Easy Vegan, and how do you see your business making a lasting impact on the way people view food and sustainability?

When meal kit advertisements began filling our mailboxes a few years ago, I was intrigued by the potential to make dinner easier without sacrificing freshness or variety. In fact, I loved the idea of adding new-to-me recipes to my routine. As a vegan, there were few to no options and as an eco-conscious consumer, the amount of single-use plastics that the industry relied on didn’t align with my values. That's when I started envisioning a different kind of meal kit service and found myself getting increasingly excited about another core component of this business - sharing food with the community. I think feeding friends is a love language I inherited from my grandparents and introducing friends to new foods that become favourite foods or plant-based dinners that they are surprised to learn they find delicious is really enjoyable. It's been rewarding to share good food and creative ideas with a community so much broader than my inner circle.

I think the best source for the second part of this question is my customers. Here's what they've said in terms of our impact on them:

"This is such a fantastic service. I am so happy there is finally a local plant based meal prep service. They have a great variety of choices, they support local business by sourcing locally, everything I've had so far has been gluten free and I LOVE the reduced/ sustainable packaging. Top notch! Not even comparable to other "regular" meal prep services." - Amanda

"A truly delicious local business! I was needing to change my way of eating for health reasons and found Easy Vegan. The meals take little time to prep and make (a bonus as someone working full time & a parent). Also, amazing customer service! If you're looking for a meal delivery this is the place!!" - TJ

Plant-based diets are often highlighted for their lower environmental impact. How does Easy Vegan prioritize sustainability in sourcing ingredients and packaging to further contribute to a healthier planet?

Yes, eating more plants is a fantastic way to reduce your environmental impact and we have designed Easy Vegan to prioritize sustainability at every step - from sourcing to packaging and delivery. We have a local-first procurement policy and work hard to curate seasonal recipes, which allows us to maximize the produce that we can source from right here on the island. Sourcing locally further reduces our environmental footprint by decreasing the transportation emissions associated with getting the product from where it was grown or made to our warehouse.

Beyond sustainability, we support our local economy and the community that we care so much about and by sourcing locally, you receive fresher, tastier food. Much of our produce is pulled from the ground just one or two days before it reaches your doorstep and the difference in taste is undeniable: "Omg the carrot in the rice scramble was the yummiest I’ve had in a long time" - customer email. Our packaging is entirely compostable and/or recyclable. We use primarily paper bags and have sourced backyard-compostable "plastic" for where we needed a leak-proof bagging solution. Down to the recipe papers themselves, we consider our environmental impact in every piece of the product and do our best to explain why.

For example, we switched from cardstock-style recipe paper used by other meal kit companies to regular printer paper because it takes 6.5 x as many trees to produce cardstock than to produce a regular piece of paper!

Finally, for delivery, we've partnered with a local zero-emissions courier whose fleet is entirely electric and hydrogen-cell vehicles and we send your recipes out with them in reusable cooler bags with reusable ice packs (thank you to our fantastic customers for dutifully leaving these out for a return pick-up each week!)

Collaboration can amplify positive change. Have you partnered with local farmers, food producers, or other businesses to support sustainable food practices and strengthen community ties?

Yes! Collaboration in our community has been one of my favourite parts of this endeavor. We've partnered with many local farms and food producers (as you would expect having just read about our local-first procurement policy :) ) and we are so grateful for these partnerships. We also partnered with Wholesyum Baby themselves! In September, Easy Vegan and Wholesyum Baby released frozen Zucchini Pesto Hearts alongside a Zucchini Pesto Gnocchi recipe. Working with Meghan to develop the pesto recipe and production process was an enjoyable and rewarding experience. I think especially in the early days as a solo founder, finding community in others is critical - it brings joy to the process of building a business and creates a supportive network.

Beyond providing delicious vegan options, does Easy Vegan have initiatives to educate customers about the benefits of plant-based living and how their choices can make a difference for their health and the environment?

We try to share about the environmental benefits of eating more plants on our socials. ProVeg International has a succinct article on how much land, water, and CO2 emissions we can save by even just reducing our animal consumption. For example, shifting to 3 plant-based days/week could save over 18kg of CO2 in a month, that's equivalent to the emissions from a new vehicle travelling 150km - about one trip from downtown Victoria to Jordan River and back!

Food and health are such deeply personal experiences and we believe and trust that you know your body best and you know what it needs. Our goal is to offer those of you wanting to eat plants (be it sometimes or all the time!) an easy, delicious, and nutritious option and to meet you where you are. We don’t expect you to be, or even want to be, entirely vegan to enjoy Easy Vegan - it’s about making plant-based choices accessible and enjoyable, no matter your starting point. Easy Vegan is obviously a great option for those who are, and as a vegan myself, providing that option was the initial inspiration, but eating more plants, cooking plant-based sometimes, or adding additional non-vegan foods when you're cooking our recipes are all equally valid.

For anyone trying to shift into a more plant based diet do you have any tips or ideas of where or how to start?

Start small - try incorporating just two plant-based meals per week. It's not all or nothing, and there's a fair bit of research that suggests small shifts are a more sustainable way to make any sort of change to our diet. That's why I think Easy Vegan is such a great product for folks trying to shift to a more plant-based diet - we can be your only 2 meals per week that don't have animal products and you can just increase that as you want more. Meal kits are also a great way to learn new cooking techniques, like preparing tofu or working with fresh herbs.

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Continue the conversation:

Follow Easy Vegan on Instagram.

Check out their meal kits on their website.

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