A food fest to feel good about: Inaugural Western Mass Vegan Food Fest is this Sunday, June 15

A new vegan food festival is about to take root in the Pioneer Valley.

The inaugural Western Mass Vegan Food Fest will be at Abandoned Building Brewery in Easthampton on Sunday, June 15, from noon to 5 p.m.

The vendor lineup includes Little Loaf Bakeshop, Belmont Vegetarian, Midcoast Vegan, Pulse Cafe, RastaRant, Mothers Moss, Vegan Pizza Land, La Casa Azul, Eat Peckish, Veeg My Eats, Journey’s Lemonade, and Wicked Whisk, all of which are based in New England.

Festival creator Egg Henrici – and, yes, one can appreciate the irony that a vegan festival founder’s name is Egg – wanted to fill the gap created by a shortage of existing vegan food festivals in the Pioneer Valley. (JFK Middle School in Northampton hosted an event called Valley Vegfest for a few years, but its last year was in 2018. The annual Springfield-based VegFest 413 has not announced its details for 2025 as of this writing.) Henrici, a ceramicist who normally organizes art markets, often has to drive long distances to get their favorite vegan items, so they assembled the list of vendors largely by inviting their own favorite food vendors in the region.

Henrici began their path to veganism nearly three decades ago in California, when Henrici and their sister read “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair, a novel about the horrifying conditions of the Chicago meatpacking industry in the early 1900s. The book inspired them both to immediately stop eating animal products.

“I have pet bunnies, and I’m crazy about animals,” Henrici said. “I feel like, even in the 90s, it was wrong to eat them, and now, in 2025, when we have so many options for plant-based foods and cruelty-free foods, there’s no reason to hurt animals just to feed ourselves.”

The festival’s sole non-food vendor will be Western Mass Rabbit Rescue. Henrici owns four rabbits: Rocket, Gizmo, Carl, and Figgy.

“I have crazy anxiety, so there’s something about animals who also have crazy anxiety [that] really speaks to me,” they laughed.

In the future, Henrici wants to be able to bring more vendors to a bigger venue like the Worcester-based festival New England VegFest does. In the meantime, what they hope people take away from the festival – besides food itself, of course – is the idea that eating a plant-based diet is “a doable thing, and it’s not just sad, weird tofu. We’ve got some really good vegan options these days.”

(That said, when asked their vegan favorite food, Henrici’s immediate reply was “sad, weird tofu” – plus vegan pastries, too; namely, “things that you wouldn’t expect to be vegan – vegan croissants and danishes.”)

Will Meyer, co-owner of Vegan Pizza Land and Coffee Counter, said he and his team are looking forward to joining the festival in its first year.

“We feel great about it,” he said. “I think it’s really exciting that there’s energy, enthusiasm, [and a] community around eating fewer animal products.”

Vegan Pizza Land operates out of a food truck that lives permanently outside of Abandoned Building Brewery, so their menu won’t change for the festival – it’ll still feature food like pizza with kimchi and tofu bacon, chocolate chip tahini cookies, and asparagus pesto calzones.

Meyer’s motivation for a vegan lifestyle comes from scientific research that says plant-based diets help reduce carbon emissions.

“I don’t know that veganism is right for everybody on this earth, but I think if we all ate more plants, that would be a net positive for the global community, especially at this time,” he said.

Still, he said, he doesn’t like to use Vegan Pizza Land to preach or hand out “vegan propaganda pamphlets designed to make you feel bad” – rather, he wants to promote “tasty food and inclusive vibes and just try to make the best pizza that we possibly can,” and he hopes that festival guests will leave “with their hearts and their bellies full.”

“We’re going to have croissants and pizza and all kinds of very tasty treats on Sunday, so I think there’s gonna be a feast instead of famine,” he said.

Klay Kipler, owner and chef of the vegan food truck Peckish, is excited to take part because this will be Peckish’s first ever public event.

“This area has a lot of really good things going for it as far as vegan food goes, and I’m honored to be starting to dip a toe into that,” they said.

Kipler, like Henrici and Meyer, is also a longtime vegan. Though Kipler has a long history of working in vegan restaurants, they started Peckish after leaving a career in healthcare in San Francisco, which they say gave them burnout. Still, healthcare and vegan cooking have a connection – both have allowed them to help people “create a safe environment for them to take care of their bodies in.”

“I can still offer compassionate nourishment through vegan food that I’m making with lots of love, with a smile, without having to deal with the American healthcare system, with the things that were frustrating about working in it for so long,” they said.

At the festival, Peckish will be serving waffles – since it’s their first event, Kipler wants to “start really simple and really small and try to nail it” – as well as a “secret menu item” that has not been announced as of this writing.

Kipler hopes that what eventgoers take away from the festival – besides just food, of course – will be a willingness to expand their palates and minds, even if they don’t go fully vegan as a result.

“Someone having a loving day of eating with friends or family and doing good things for the planet and for animals,” they said, “it makes it worth it.”

Admission to Western Mass Vegan Food Fest is free, but registration on Eventbrite is required.

Carolyn Brown can be reached at cbrown@gazettenet.com.