Behind the Platform: Meet Parma & Simona, the Founders of Eat Plants & Travel
Eat Plants & Travel is the brainchild of London-based vegan couple Parma and Simona as the antidote to mainstream booking and listing sites. We sat down with Parma and Simona to talk about the realities of vegan travel, the problem with mainstream booking sites, and their big plans for the global plant-based economy.
Question 1: Let’s go back to the beginning. What was the specific "aha!" moment or frustrating experience that made you realise Eat Plants & Travel needed to exist?
Parma: “EPT has been on the back of our minds for a while now, when did we get married again?”
Simona: “2019. You should know that!”
Parma: “Of course I knew that… so, after our wedding in 2019…we decided to quit our jobs, sell everything and travel for a bit. I wasn’t vegan when we started travelling, but Simona was”
Simona: “Yup, and we started off our travels with a little honeymoon in the Maldives. They had this massive breakfast hall, the size of a football pitch - full of food - so I was excited. But on day 1, we went downstairs and it suddenly dawned on me that even though there was 1000s of options- apart from the fruit, I couldn’t eat anything!
Parma: “I remember, you were really excited about the daily breakfast soup - and then disappointed to find out they kept putting cream in it”
Simona: “We eventually spoke to the chef and he was suprised to hear I didn’t consume animal products - I was the only vegan on the island! after that we spent around 3 years backpacking around Asia - sandwiched by a year back in the UK because of covid - which was amazing but being vegan whilst travelling was a lot more difficult than the other travellers found it.
Parma: “I joined Simona in the light of veganism a few months into our travels after spending a month with cows in the mountains of Rishikesh whilst she was at Yoga School (story for another time) and eventually when we got back to the UK we just knew we wanted to create something for the vegan community, something to make our lives easier and something to support all those amazing vegan business owners who share our drive and passion.
Simona: “We chopped, and changed the idea for a bit - but settled on EPT being a exclusively vegan booking and listings platform. Our community doesn’t really have something that provides an alternative, barrier-free experience the likes of Trivago, Trip Advisor and Kayak do for mainstream audiences - so we made our vegan version, and it’s great!
Question 2: In your About page, you mention that living a vegan lifestyle requires a lot of "cross-referencing and confirming." What is the most exhausting part of navigating mainstream travel or dining apps as a vegan?
Simona: “Oh easily having to check every menu for vegan options whenever we meet friends - and not only that, they’ll want to go somewhere and we’ll check the menu only to find we only have 1 option”
Parma: “Travelling as vegans is just another level of effort. Whenever we book a hotel or homestay we need to check what they’re like - we once booked a place that had that real bear skin - with faces - as floor rugs! So we need to check everything before booking, and then because we know we probably aren’t going to be able to eat anything we need to make sure there’s at least one vegan-friendly food place nearby”
Simona: “most of the times we just get a self-catering thing - so we don’t have to worry about it”
Parma: “Yea, so that’s annoying - so it’s something EPT just eliminates - everything on the site is vegan - all the stays are verified and do amazing work”
Question 3: The phrase "Zero-Compromise" is a huge part of the EPT identity. What does that mean to you when vetting businesses for the directory?
Parma: “We did mull this over for a while - whether to allow vegan-friendly businesses on the platform, even though they weren’t 100% vegan”
Simona: “There’s some amazing vegetarian restaurants, and even awesome mainstream places that do brilliant vegan and plant-based options. But ultimately we decided to just remove the doubt, and the friction.
Parma: “yea, it’s a choice we’re comfortable with - keeping EPT exclusively vegan just makes the entire booking and listing process clear, transparent and easier for our customers and vegan business owners”
Question 5: Mainstream booking and listing sites are notorious for burying small businesses under algorithms or charging steep commissions. How is Eat Plants & Travel changing that dynamic for independent vegan founders?
Parma: “Well we don’t charge commision, and unlike some listings websites we don’t do pay-for-ranking-boosts - as we have no rankings!
Simona: “Generally most vegan businesses are small, independently owned and our onboarding process for businesses is the same for businesses of all sizes.
Parma: “We have our free plan for businesses - that’s frictionless and creates a space for any vegan business, no matter what size they are to be listed, and then we have flat-fee Gold and Platinum plans which drive direct bookings.
Question 6: You talk a lot about "cultivating the plant-based economy." Why is it so important to keep vegan consumer money circulating within 100% vegan businesses?
Parma: “We’re a minority worldwide community that shares core values, and we exist in a world that penalises us for wanting to be cruelty-free and not damage the planet. We see it all the time in London- small businesses around us are closing down constantly, and that disproportionately includes vegan businesses. We need to support our own community. We want to encourage people using the platform to spend directly with the businesses that share their values. It’s how we survive and grow”
Question 7: How about fun question? - If you could only eat at one 100% vegan restaurant for the rest of your life, where are you going and what are you ordering?
Simona: “Easy!”
Parma: “Nope, I know what you’re going to say and it’s closed down!”
Simona: “I don’t believe it’s closed down! - I was going to say this tiny vegan restaurant we discovered in Hualien, Taiwan. They did this signature spicy ramen dish, which you could have either dry or as a soup - the best food of any kind I’ve ever had. And they also did these fried miso ball things, which were like popcorn - just amazing”
Parma: “I don’t know about for the rest of my life, but my current fav - Pockets in Hackney, London. They only serve one thing, a 100% vegan falafel in pita - and it’s the best street food in London right now. Seriously, check it out”
Question 8: What is the most surprisingly vegan-friendly city or country you’ve ever visited?
Simona: “Taiwan”
Parma: “Taiwan”
Simona: “ha! when we got there we were so confused we ended up eating a vegan burger on the street from this protein gym-themed stall. But then after a few days we started to work it out and knew how to look for plant-based at the street markets, and the words for “vegan food” or “vegetarian”. I think I used to say “wooshee sushee” - which either means I am vegetarians, or I eat vegetarians.
Parma: “I remember we found this restaurant in Chishang, South Taiwan. They were veggie, not vegan - but the vegan dish they did had a herb called Chinese Toon. It was unlike anything we ever had before. We extended our stay in that tiny village from two days to five days just to eat there.
Simona: “So, yea, that’s pretty unanimous!”
Question 9: What is one essential item you never travel without?
Simona: “Is it boring to say my books?”
Parma: “yes. Is it boring to say my earbuds?”
Simona: “yes”
Question 10: You’re a growing startup with big plans. Where do you see Eat Plants & Travel in the next three to five years?
Parma: “We built EPT from the ground up right in our bedroom. I learned everything about coding and building the platform from scratch, and while we are incredibly proud of where it is today, we want to keep evolving. In the future, we want to be in a position to scale the tech, bring in professionals to give it a high-end polish, and launch our dedicated app. We’re also looking at creating a dedicated members' area with exclusive resources for our businesses and visitors”
Simona: “There’s so much we want to do with it. ultimately we really want to create a space for our community that they can trust, and engage with.
Thank you to Parma & Simona for their time. If you’re looking for vegan stays, eats, experiences or products check out www.eatplantsandtravel.com.
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