BASINGSTOKE’S first-ever vegan café has opened its doors and hopes to provide a ‘friendly environment’ for residents to enjoy.

Vemillion, which is located at Chineham Shopping Centre, opened on Monday, January 24 and is Basingstoke’s first 100 per cent vegan café.

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Emma Manners, the director of the café said the whole team are delighted to open and have been working really hard.

She said: “It is really exciting to finally be opening and I think it’s something that Basingstoke has really been missing.

“The cakes here are just fantastic and you just would never know that they did not have egg in them they are just superb.

“We are also trying to promote sustainability and if anyone ever wanted to do something like meat-free Monday they could come here. We are also a coffee shop with all kinds of coffees, my personal favourite has to be the pumpkin spice latte, which we offer all year round.”

The whole interior of the shop is covered with original African artwork, which has been painted and hand signed by artist in Ghana who created them.

The vegan café purchased the artwork and hope to sell them to members of the public and then give the money back to the artists.

Emma added: “We have all the African artwork on the wall for sale, our sister company who we work with has worked very closely with a charity in Ghana and we wanted to do something to help.

“With the artists, they rely heavily on tourists but over the last few years nobody has been travelling so the families have been struggling to feed their own families because they rely on the selling of the artwork so that is why we have brought their artwork. The paintings are-just really stunning.”

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Also on sale are other items including bags and jewellery, the bags have all been made from sustainable water bottles.
Emma said it has taken “a lot of preparation to open the café” and they hope that residents will pop in to try out all they have to offer in the coming days.
She added: “All the packaging is biodegradable and the café uses glass over plastics.”

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