By Daniela Ginsburg
Special to the Reporter
Copyright © 2026 Boston Neighborhood News, Inc. This content may not be re-published or re-used without written permission.
Hundreds of people found their way to the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center over the weekend for the 31st annual Boston Veg Food Fest last Saturday and Sunday, where they sampled the plant-based offerings of dozens of vendors.
The festival, created by the Boston Vegetarian Society, is the longest-running event of its kind in the United States. It featured more than 70 vendors selling vegan products ranging from fast-food alternatives and baked goods to vegan merchandise, along with informative pop-ups for education and outreach.
A busy crowd of people trying new vegan foods and products alike with different vendors filling the gymnasium. Samantha Mandala photos
Sarah Luz, who’s in her 50s and lives in Rhode Island, has attended the festival for the past 10 years. She said it’s a great way to try out new businesses and meet people with similar lifestyles.
When she was 13, Luz and her classmates visited a farm where she held a chicken and saw a chicken plucker machine, which turned her to the vegetarian lifestyle. She saw parallels between house pets she grew up with and animals that were raised for food, finding it hard to “eat one and befriend the other.”
She said she has been vegan for 30 years, driven by the environmental impacts of meat and the health benefits of a plant-based diet. The festival, she said, offers non-vegans a “gateway” into a vegan lifestyle.
“You can kind of land gradually into this, and the more things that you realize you like, you’re not necessarily giving up something,” Luz said. “You’re adding.”
Eleven members from the Boston Vegetarian Society had worked since January to plan the event, bringing experts from California, New York state, and Toronto to speak about the health, environmental, and culinary benefits of veganism.
Evelyn Kimber, the society’s president, founded the nonprofit in 1986 and started the festival to expand its reach by featuring small businesses to help “explore plant-based living.”
She noted that “we’ve had people who’ve said that going to our festival has changed their life. It’s a way of just taking a step in the direction of eating more plant-based meals and less animal-based meals.”
Taza Chocolate’s vendor station. Samantha Mandala photos
Taza Chocolate, which has operated in Somerville for over 20 years, shared its products at the fest. The vegan chocolate brand uses traditional stone mills from Mexico to ensure that the “bright flavors” of the cocoa beans are intact, said Stephanie Larason, Taza’s director of marketing and e-commerce.
She said the company pays above fair trade price to have a closer relationship with its cacao farmers in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. “We keep the ingredients as simple as possible,” she said. “The less you process them, the more you’re going to taste the ingredients.”
The current “protein push” for health-focused companies has many products using whey-based protein powders — unlike Sweet Babu’s, a Chicopee company that makes granola using natural tree nut fats for its protein source, said Liz DeRubeis, operations sales manager.
Bringing Caribbean and Latin fusion to the festival, the Ital Juicery Company of Hartford, Connecticut, offered “Jamaican Patty Pandas,” a mix of Jamaican patties and Latin empanadas. Its founder, Chris-Ann Miller, sells her goods — which include “functional juices” with sea moss, ginger or other natural ingredients to offer a “health-conscious living” — in local markets.
Megan Schulz-Fontes, founder of Allie Foods, a vegan ice cream company, said she became aware of how many products rely on animals after she became a mother. She founded her company last summer to provide an alternative that wouldn’t “exploit” animals while using less sugar.
A couple waiting in line for a local vegan food vender. Samantha Mandala photos
The ice cream base is a combination of coconut cream and cashew butter using half cane sugar and half allulose, a zero-calorie natural sweetener.
As a “reducetarian” — someone who eats less meat and dairy products — Schulz-Fontes markets her product to vegans and non-vegans to meet people “halfway,” saying “It’s not very easy or easily accessible for folks to become fully plant-based. Not everything’s black and white.”
Since 1976, Jonathan Sprouts of Rochester has grown organic sprouts and microgreens from its barn. Its products also include dressings, salad toppers, and infused sprouts in its skincare line.
“Plants are medicine,” said Madison Demelo, the company’s marketing director.
Not all products at the festival were edible. Vegan Power Co. of Los Angeles brought ’80s retro and ’90s punk-styled shirts, hats, and stickers to “broadcast vegan messaging.”
Alicia Perkins, the brand’s founder, created the merchandise in 2016 to represent their punk-retro aesthetic, designing all products to promote “liberation” for humans and animals.
Allied Scholars for Animal Protection (ASAP), a national organization focused on bringing vegan advocacy to higher education, operates in more than 40 schools across the country — five of which are in Massachusetts — to provide resources, mentorship, and plant-based options in dining halls.
Benjahmin Koenigsberg, an advocate for ASAP, said being vegan is a “catalyst for change.” He travels throughout the Northeast to support the organization’s national reach.
“My ideal world is a vegan world,” he said. “We can rewild so much of our planet, and restore some of the balance and ecological balance and habitat for wild animals.”
Attending the festival for her fifth year, Natalie Martin, a pre-K teacher in Cambridge, said she has been vegan since she was 9, a “default” lifestyle owing to her allergies. She said the festival’s environment helps her meet like-minded people.
Her friend, Victoria Carroll, who goes with Martin every year, said the festival’s free entry creates a welcoming environment for those curious about a plant-based lifestyle. For Carroll, the festival serves as a source of inspiration for different vegetarian recipes.
“It’s really cool to see new foods that you might not typically think would be vegan be made vegan,” she said.
This story is the product of a partnership between the Dorchester Reporter and the Boston University Department of Journalism’s Newsroom Initiative.
Copyright © 2026 Boston Neighborhood News, Inc. This content may not be re-published or re-used without written permission.
