Alberta's first vegan store!

Today we drove out to Cochrane, Alberta, a short and pleasant drive from Calgary, to visit the brand new vegan store; VegOut Boutique. From their VegOut Boutique Facebook page, they describe themselves as "A health boutique that is dedicated to protecting your health, your planet and improving your quality of life." It is owned and operated by a lovely and passionate couple. The store is bright, well marked and with ample parking.

The store is amazing. The store stocks a wide variety of vegan items, some not found anywhere else in my travels in the Calgary area. They have a frozen & refrigerated food area with a large selection of Sweets from the Earth baked goods, tofurkey products (including the pizza pockets and quiche which I have not seen anywhere else in Alberta), raw foods and desserts, fillo dough, yoghurts, non-dairy spreads, assorted prepared meals and much more. 

There are 3 aisles of other goods including clothing, purses, yoga items, shoes (including Cynthia King vegan ballet slippers!), dried/canned food items, cosmetics, condoms, mushrooms, an impressive selection of books and DVDs, chocolates, snacks, Sea Shepherd products, and so much more! I spoke with the lovely owners and they also have plans to soon stock the line of Earth Balance snacks, Go Max Chocolate bars, & Premium Chocolatiers candies. If there is a vegan product you'd like stocked be sure to suggest it!

So with all this awesome inventory, what did we buy? I fell in love with the gorgeous recycled rubber fringed purse from the Canadian company http://www.ressac.ca/en/, a super warm Sea Shepherd hoodie with embroidered logo, tofurky pizza pockets and quiche, vegan probiotics, mushroom soup and gravy and powdered peanut butter. 

The store is amazing and we are lucky to have a vegan resource like this in the province. Get out there often and support this fabulous local business! Better yet make a day of it and have a meal at the nearby vegetarian (and mostly vegan) Thai-Onzon Veggie Restaurant. (Note Thai-Onzon is closed for vacation for the month of August 2014).