Vegetarian Express was founded over 35 years ago in 1987 by David Jonas, a vegetarian for 40 years who, with a passion for environmental issues since the early 70’s started operations from the bedroom of a terraced house in Ilford, using just two chest freezers in the back garden.

Within a year, we had progressed to a small lock-up in Watford where our product range consisted of eight cook-chill vegetarian recipe meals, pre-prepared by a specialist vegetarian food manufacturer in Greenwich.

By the early 1990’s, we had crafted a niche for providing both advice and specialist ingredients within the health food trade. This is encapsulated by our strap line: “Suppliers and Consultants to the Catering Industry”- as true today as it was then. 

A call from a head chef in a global merchant bank restaurant, trying to establish healthy eating menus in the workplace, led us to establish our client base amongst contract caterers. By the year 2000 we were selling our vegetarian recipes to virtually every major contract caterer within the UK, together with hotels, colleges, independent restaurants and catering groups.

Today, we are the UK’s premier specialist vegetarian and vegan food distributors within the foodservice sector. We have an extensive knowledge of our specialist products enabling us to offer advice on nutrition, menu planning, in order to help us exceed client’s demands for exciting, innovative and healthy vegetarian and vegan menus.

Our aim is to promote and cater for the continually growing trend for healthy eating, with a particular focus on healthy eating in the work place. We are also specialists in ethnic ingredients with an excellent reputation for our extensive range of high quality authentic products.

There is a lot more work to be done in promoting healthier lifestyles, and we are at the forefront of this growing industry.

For more information about meeting the Vegetarian Express team and to receive a tour of our warehouse, please get in touch.