Kristine Bartley runs the Vegan Vault, an all-vegan night market in Wellington. The Vegan Vault has exploded in recent times with vegans and non-vegans alike crowding the stalls.
This week we speak to Kristine about the hectic life she leads, running the Vegan Vault in addition to Sweet Release.
Balance Transfers: Can you tell us a bit about the Vegan Vault. In your own words, what does it do?
Kristine: The Vegan Vault is an all-vegan night market. We wanted to showcase how delicious vegan food is, and we wanted to help the charities get their name out there, and we just wanted to have all the vegan communities to be able to go to one roof and support people (associated) with animals, the environment, and other things to do with veganism.
I’ve been very lucky that a lot of my business friends have come on board to help me. All the food trucks and stuff like that – they’re not necessarily 100% vegan but they’re very open (to the idea) and would like more vegan customers as well, so it’s a win/win situation for everybody.
Balance Transfers: What got you started with the project?
Kristine: Just the frustration of going to the other markets and asking what’s vegan, and being misled into thinking that something was vegan. I just remember thinking it would be awesome if I could go to a place and not have to ask. It was a sort of a dream, and that became a reality a few months later.
Balance Transfers: Do you think that there’s an ample supply of available food or vegan restaurant options in Wellington?
Kristine: I think there’s definitely a huge increase. I don’t think there’s “enough”, like, for what I would like to see the vegan options to be available. But it’s definitely on the increase, which is awesome. I’m not happy with the current situation so I’m trying to change it towards making it what I would like it to be.
Balance Transfers: What do you think has been driving the increase in veganism?
Kristine: In Wellington I would say that it’s the business owners. There’s obviously a new wave of vegans coming in, and they’re all kind of younger and making their influence in the hospo sectors. And also just the internet. Like, you can watch Netflix or watch documentaries any time you want, as much as you want, and having access to information like that readily available has changed for the benefit of the vegan community.
Balance Transfers: Has it been good for your business?
Kristine: Yes. Being a business owner, things just get kind of crazy all the time anyway. It’s been good for us. I’ve been happy to see lots of people going vegan as well. We’re trying to do what we can to help people transition over. That was the whole point as well with starting the shop – we wanted to show people that they don’t have to be starved of food.
Balance Transfers: Do people appreciate the help that you give them with helping them transition?
Kristine: Yup. It’s probably the transitioning part that they appreciate the most, with having access to food like birthday cakes. We get a lot of vegans with things like nut allergies, dairy allergies, egg allergies. People who have never had stuffed birthday cakes before. That’s my favourite part.
Balance Transfers: What do you think the Vegan Vault adds to the culture in Wellington?
Kristine: They don’t have to be vegan to come to the Vegan Vault, it’s open to everybody. The feedback I’ve been getting so far from the non-vegans that come is they really didn’t think vegan food would be this tasty! Or they’ve been coming before and not realising that it’s a vegan night market. I think it breaks down a lot of the stereotypes that vegan food is boring. All of the vendors make sure that their vegan food is fresh and delicious because it’s a lot of people eating.
A lot of people are there to support the animals as well. Apart from online or apart from festivals and such, the Vegan Society and HUHA do not get much showcase. The Vegan Vault kind of helps remind people monthly that these charities exist.
It creates a bit of momentum within veganism in Wellington because there are all these restaurants joining us, starting out, saying ‘oh shit’ there’s a lot of demand for what we’ve just made, let’s bring it back to our store. And then you can go to that restaurant or cafe and they’ll have a vegan option for you.
Balance Transfers: So does that mean that food vendors are actually changing what they sell to capture that market?
Kristine: Yeah, there are a lot of people who have created new items, or they don’t sell vegan food at the moment but they want to be a part of the market. Then they realise that we’ve had thousands of people turn up, and it’s a market they’re not capturing. It’s always been like that – the Vegan Vault is really popular, has a really nice vibe to it, and there are vegans and non-vegans all getting along really well. A lot of the friction you see between those two groups is usually online and they’re usually trolling each other. Whereas it’s harder to do that in person, and the people who do come to the Vegan Vault are very open-minded and nice.
Balance Transfers: Do you think this is a potentially scalable idea? Do you see potential for vaults like this to open up in other areas of NZ?
Kristine: There’s already the vegan fairs happening around New Zealand. It would be cool to see a night market. The whole night market scene is fairly new in NZ anyway – Christchurch has just started doing one. It would be cool to see one down there. And I think there’s enough people in Auckland to make it happen. As far as the Vegan Vault – it would be awesome to have it like every week. Or maybe eventually (if I was planning super big with it) even have a vegan mall.
Balance Transfers: Is there a lot of preparation that goes into preparing for each Vegan Vault from your side? As well as organising the whole thing you’ve also got a stall there as well?
Kristine: Well, we only did a stall last month because (laughs) I’ve never run a market before! And I knew that I’d calculated how much work was required, and I’d double and triple checked how much time I could put into it. I wanted to make sure that the stall holders were looked after before putting my own needs forward.
I’m not sure about other markets, but we’re pretty heavy on the social media side of things. As part of the package of storeholders signing up with us, they get a storeholder shout out, and at any time they can tag us in posts with what they’re doing. We’ve already got about 1200 followers on the Vegan Vault which is really good for such a new Facebook page!
The vegan community is also really awesome about it as well.
Balance Transfers: Crikey, you’re busy.
Kristine: Because it’s such a new concept we’re still evolving with it. For example for the next one we’re planning on getting a family area, just because it gets so crowded. I’ve actually been in contact with a couple of vegan artists as well, who will put together some colouring books off the side.
Balance Transfers: So more crowds means more logistics, basically.
Kristine: Yes. And then obviously helping the stallholders set up. We spend a couple of hours before the night market actually comes. We started this new initiative with the Vegan Vault charities. The stalls cost $80 per month. The charities get a free month for just helping us keep the area tidy for that night. Even between stallholders, there’s a lot of collaboration going on.
