F&D Heroes Issue 1

Food & Drink Hero:
The Vurger Co
Rachel and Neil have grand plans for The Vurger Co, all in keeping with their
mission of revolutionising fast food through the power of plants, to make
vegan food as accessible and convenient as possible.
Having started The Vurger Co in 2016 as a
market stall, we wanted to reimagine fast
food by giving it a vegan focus. Neil, my
co-founder, suffered with terrible stomach
issues for years and having become vegan in
our personal lives we suddenly realised how
much the market needed a great vegan fast
food restaurant with a focus on innovation,
and so The Vurger Co was born.
We built everything from the ground up,
starting as a market stall in 2016 to gain
traction and customer feedback right from
the get go. We grew from market stall to
pop-up restaurant in 2016 to 2018 whilst still
working full-time to support the business
growth. We would work Monday to Friday,
make burgers on a Saturday and then sell
them on a Sunday and we did that on repeat
to gain as much feedback as possible.
We then realised how important it was to
our customers to have somewhere regular
to go to meet their friends, catch up and
enjoy insanely delicious vegan fast food,
which just didn’t exist in the marketplace at
the time.
This allowed us to launch our Vegan
Mayo sauce range in May 2020, which is
now sold in amazing retailers like Planet
Organic, The Vegan Kind Supermarket
and stocked with incredible wholesalers
across the country.
This is a little snapshot into our story
and how we’ve gotten to where we are
just in four short years. We couldn’t
be more grateful to everyone who has
supported us from the ground up and
continues to show us love through
Instagram and in our restaurants. It is
because of you that we’re here today.
So in March 2018, we were able to open our
Shoreditch restaurant after a successful
crowdfunding campaign, our first
permanent restaurant. Then in November
2018 we grew to two sites in less than eight
months. And most recently our newest
Brighton store which opened amidst the
global pandemic in July 2020.
In between this time, we have been
extremely conscious of the fact that our
customers really want to access our brand
and products even when our restaurants
aren’t open. The one thing we have
controlled since the start of our launch is
our production, with a dedicated production
space. In turn, we have been able to innovate
whilst still keeping on top
of consistency.
thevurgerco.com
@TheVurgerCo
@thevurgerco
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