Frequently Asked Questions

We are a small, family-owned online marketplace that strives to offer the best products for all your vegan needs. We are committed to taking the guesswork out of label reading by doing it for you. All our products are 100% vegan so you can be free to shop knowing that none of your items have any sneaky ingredients!

If you are not vegan yet, we would like to inspire you to try vegan! You can join our community page on Instagram (VeganKenya), where we share what we are eating so you can get an idea that eating this way is doable.  Let’s eat vegan for our future and for the future of the planet.

We are exclusively an online only marketplace, which means we do not have a physical location where customers can visit nor do we have a collect-goods service.

Our online model allows you to free up your own time by shopping from any browser and simply waiting to receive your products right at your door. We deliver next day, Monday to Saturday!

We do not currently have the capacity to offer phone support.

The best way to reach us is via email, contact form or the chat message box on the bottom right corner on this site. We are very responsive to all messages! As an online store, we’ve included as much detail as we can to ensure that everything you need to complete an order is found on this site.

We accept: Mpesa Express, Credit and Debit Cards (via DPO).

Mpesa Express is an automated payment processing known as “Mpesa Express” which you can read about here. It’s a faster and safer system because you don’t have to remember Paybill numbers or account numbers (or worse, pay the wrong person). When you enter your Safaricom number, the payment is automatically pushed to your phone (aka STK Push) and all you have to do is enter your private PIN.

DPO is the pan-African payment provider for online, offline and mobile payment processing in Kenya. They offer a safe and secure credit card processing platform that enables customers to shop online and pay in real time using credit cards and cross-border mobile money (Airtel, MTN, Tigo, Vodacom). Read about DPO here.

We are an online store so all orders and transactions are handled through this website www.vegankenya.com! The stock is managed through an inventory managment system so what you see online is what we have available.

Click on “Shop” to go through the entire catalogue. Or go directly to the category you want if you already know what you are getting.  When you see a product you like click on “Add to Cart” and Continue Shopping to add other items to your cart. When ready to purchase, click on “Proceed to Checkout”. Enter your contact and complete delivery details and proceed to pay by selecting either of these two options: Mpesa Express (STK Push) or DPO Payments for Credit/Debit Cards (Visa, Mastercard, American Express etc) and cross-border mobile money payments (Airtel, MTN, Tigo, Vodacom).  Check the Terms and Conditions box and “Place Order”

Successful orders will recieve the Mpesa notification SMS message as well as an order received message from Vegan Kenya.  Those paying via credit cards will receive a successful payment page, a notification email from DPO and an order received email from Vegan Kenya.

We ship all orders NEXT DAY, Monday to Saturday. Per our Service Level Agreement (SLA) our orders ship out within 1-2 days. Most orders within Kenya typically deliver within 24 hours (next day delivery). Sometimes we have to re-stock a local product due to accidental in-house damage/errors the item may take an extra day. If this is the case, you will be notified immediately.

Orders received over the weekend are shipped out on Monday. We do not ship out orders on Sunday.

Please enter your delivery locations in FULL, including house/apartment/office number and building/estate names, as well as the neighbourhood e.g ‘Hurlingham’ or ‘Syokimau’.  If you live in an area that has confusing directions please use the notes field to add details that will help out our couriers.  If you enter incomplete addresses that cannot be seen on Google we may have to cancel your order.

If your order has chilled items, it needs to be in the fridge/freezer as soon as delivery is complete.  Please ensure that you have someone at the specified delivery location who has been notified of our delivery or who can accept the delivery on your behalf.   Not doing so needlessly delays consequent customer deliveries.  If your delivery has to be returned to us, you will  incurr another delivery charge for us to re-deliver.

No. We use Fargo Couriers and they do not have climate-controlled warehouse facilities nor are their delivery trucks equipped to deal with frozen/chilled items.  Butter, Cheese, Faux Meats and Ice-cream products can only be delivered within NAIROBI.

*We have heard your pleas and are furiously working on a cold-shipping solution for outside of Nairobi!*

STK Push Prompt not displayed to user is due to one of these reasons:

1. The user has not updated the SIM Card menu, thus needs an update. User dials  *234# then select #1 products then #6 sim card update 
2. The SIM card is too old (3+ years) and has not received the STK Update to allow access to this service
3. Mpesa funds are less than the order amount
4. Daily maintenance updates occurring in the background at the exact time user is transacting

At designated times of the day, we are also available via live online chat or (chat box at the bottom right hand corner of your screen). When we are not live you can use the chat form to send us a message directly from the site.

No. We use an inventory management system that is tied to our payment gateway so it doesn’t allow either option without a successful transaction.

If however, you want to go ahead and purchase items for a delivery date into the future (say, if you are out of town for a week and want us to deliver once you get back), you can indicated that in the notes.  Say, ‘please delay this delivery until the [SPECIFIC DATE]’ and we will do as directed.

No. We do not offer wholesale services as we are a retail outlet. However, we don’t typically place limits on the number of products you can order from the store.  Our store has inventory management systems so all quantities available online are correct.

Yes! First time customers who spend 2000/- can use the code NEWB10 for 10% off their first order, rejoice!

Vegan Kenya is committed to stocking products that match our core values and ethos. Those values are 100% Vegan, Cruelty-Free and Organic products, which means we are looking at premium brands. We strive to offer 100% GMO-free products.

On the local side, we do not have standardized labelling for GMO-free products, but we hear this is in the works. Our local vendors must make sure that their raw materials are organic or as close to nature as possible.

We will occasionally offer items for sale throughout the year. We know you work hard for your money so sales are a good way to get that item you have been eyeing!

Some items on sale are those that are close to their ‘best by’ dates (we set these items to go on sale 3 weeks to their best by dates).  Because a good number of our products are imported, it helps to understand what these terms mean:

• A “Best if Used By/Before” date indicates when a product will be of best flavor or quality.  It is not a purchase or safety date.
• A “Sell-By” date tells the store how long to display the product for sale for inventory management.  It is not a safety date. 
• A “Use-By” date is the last date recommended for the use of the product while at peak quality. It is not a safety date except for when used on infant formula.
• A “Freeze-By” date indicates when a product should be frozen to maintain peak quality. It is not a purchase or safety date

Eliminating food waste is one of our environmental pillars. These products can still be used past their printed dates and it helps the planet every little bit by ensuring that we are not adding edible food to the landfill.

Resources: https://www.foodsafety.gov/keep-food-safe/foodkeeper-app and https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2014/08/19/save-money-knowing-when-food-safe

Yes, and we welcome them! We are a store for vegans by vegans and we want to make sure you can find all your favourite products. Shoot us an email over on sales@vegankenya.com or use the contact form on our website.

Yes, we use kraft paper delivery bags, made in the local market and we pack as minimally as possible.  If we think that a glass jar is at a risk, we will protect it with paper or kraft bubble wrap, all items that are re-used from the stock we recieve.  Additionally, for out-of-town deliveries, we re-use corrugated boxes, packaging paper, bubble wrap etc as many times as possible to ensure that we are not adding needless waste to the environment.

We stock a variety of vegan goods and we have tagged each product with common allergens/diet preferences.

Simply use our robust search button and type out what you are looking for be it “gluten free” or “soy free” or “non gmo” etc. Also, you can click on any of the tags under a product listing and that will take you to similar items with those tags.  Finally, any words that are in a different color are clickable links!

Bummer! We try hard to balance in-stock quantities and shelf life but sometimes it is difficult to judge how popular any item is going to be.  This balance helps us to stay as ‘low waste’ as possible.

We offer an automated email service to notify you immediately a product is back in stock. Simply enter your email in the box under the description of the specific product “email me once product is available” and click to subscribe to the alert.

Once logged into your account, click on the product you purchased and want to review, scroll down to “Reviews” and click on it. Type in your comments in the box that opens and select “Submit” once finished.

Tip for reviews: Leave relevant information once you have tried/used the product – about what you liked or what you did not. That way, it will be a constructive review for another customer who is relying on reviews to make a decision. Reviews regarding delivery or other issues should not be left under a product review, instead please send us an email so we can correct it. We can’t wait to check out your reviews!

Some products have cross contamination warnings, which we include on our website where we can! This simply means that the factory where the product was manufactured, also handles other non-vegan products (not that the specific product contains that item(s)). This is a worldwide industry practice.  For instance, a chocolatier who makes regular milk chocolate with nuts, may also offer a vegan chocolate so their product will contain a tag that says “May contain traces of milk and nuts”. This tag is usually to warn those with severe allergies that the facility handles these allergens.  If you have an allergy and you want to double check a product, please check the description box for the tag or feel free to contact us at sales@vegankenya.com

We follow The Vegan Society’s stance on palm oil, which means we view palm oil as a vegan product in and of itself. We are aware that some of our customers prefer to avoid palm oil where possible, so we’re working on also reducing products with palm oil. If we can find an alternative product without palm oil, we will re-stock with that one. In the meantime, check the description box for the ingredients list.

The Vegan Society’s full stance below:
In itself, palm oil is a vegetable product which does not need to involve the (ab)use of animals, and therefore is suitable for vegans. The palm oil and palm timber industries are rife with very bad practices. In the EU, palm oil used in food must now be labelled, but ingredients derived from palm oil in food and non-food products still do not have to be labelled. So it is not possible for consumers to boycott palm products. Instead, ending the abuses of the palm tree (oil and timber) industries requires co-ordinated action by consumers, policymakers, vegans and non-vegans together.
Vegans should also be aware that due the fact that single-issue campaigns have focused solely on the negative effects of palm oil, other types of crop farming, which cause harm to many animals, are overlooked. The Vegan Society is working towards a world where animals are not (ab)used for human purposes. We encourage stock-free farming and alternatives to widespread crop clearance and other farming methods which currently cause many animals to die every year. Unfortunately, it is not yet possible or practical for individual vegans to only support vegan farming. However, the consumption of plant-based crops such as wheat, barley, oil palm and soybeans causes far fewer animals to lose their lives than eating animals

If you have a market day at your institution where you would like us to exhibit and sell our products please write to janette@vegankenya.com