Three new vegan supermarkets have opened in Paris as Naturalia dedicates three of its chain of stores to serving vegan products.
The vegan supermarkets — which will be called Naturalia Vegan — will offer around 2000 organic, vegan products across their shelves.
The three shops are being converted from the original Naturalia stores, and will be the first fully vegan supermarkets in France. Naturalia, a subsidiary of the Casino group, has 150 stores nationwide with another 20 due to open this year. If these first three vegan shops are a success then the company could look to roll out more stores throughout the country, according to French media outlet Le Figaro.
The opening of these 100 per cent vegan supermarkets in the French capital shows the changing times. France is finally catching up with much of the Western world and eating less animal products. Recently a vegan chef was awarded the coveted title of ‘maître restauranteur’ for his commitment to using the best raw and fresh produce in his food. He became the first vegan chef to be given the honour.
Additionally, vegan vineyards are popping up across the country. Reports show there are now five vegan-certified vineyards in France. Last year there were none.
Vegan Supermarkets popping up across world
Naturalia Vegan joins fully vegan supermarkets in other cities around the world. GreenBay is one of these stores and opened in London last year. The benefit of shopping in vegan supermarkets for consumers is knowing the stock is all vegan. In major chains checking labels to determine which are suitable can be time consuming. Many of the major supermarkets are making far more effort to improve their vegan labelling though. Earlier this year Asda changed its labelling and added The Vegan Society’s Vegan Trademark to 16 different products with the intention of rolling it out across the store in time.