About Us
About Us & Hall Royd
by Lucy
I have been a vegetarian since childhood and always talked about becoming vegan but felt unable to take the final step. After rescuing chickens in 2023, and seeing first hand the impact factory farming was having on animals, it was too difficult to ignore. I couldn’t stand the thought of contributing to this any longer, so along with my husband Ian, I went vegan.
We often struggled to find vegan options that were healthy and different. When eating out we found that plant based food was generally pretty basic and stripped back compared to nonmeatfree offerings. Even the difference in quality in vegetarian and vegan food was stark. Vegan options are much better than they once were, finding decent food to enjoy at home that you didn’t need to cook from scratch was still a rarity.
So we spent 6 months testing every vegan product that we could get our hands on, trialing so many recipes on ourselves, our family and our friends.
We have always had a keen interest in cooking (which is lucky to say we are cooking for a family of 9 each day) and we discovered that with the right ingredients and attention to detail that our food was just as good as any we had before, vegan or not.
This isn’t to say that it was easy to transition to vegan, there are still things I wish I could eat and get ‘fomo’ when eating out when looking at the options available to everyone else.
The judgement from all angles about how “vegan” I was but for us we appreciate that it can be an overwhelming thought to give up something for life especially when we are so conditioned for it to be acceptable.
Whilst we have developed this business with ethics in mind we have found that a lot of our customers aren’t actually vegan and are trying to cut down on meat which we are pleased to be a part of as ultimately helping people to eat less meat therefore less animals suffer is our aim.
Our business was borne from the desire and struggle to find delicious food, both at home and in restaurants.
We are incredibly lucky to live with our animals and our seven children at Hall Royd House, in Shepley, Yorkshire. The ‘Royd’ was established prior to 1660, is full of quirks, and is where the company’s name comes from.
Ian and I hope you enjoy our plantbased menu as much we have done researching, creating and now sharing it.
Our Mission
We love cooking, and we love showing nonvegans how vegan food can be as good as anything less ethical.
Love not hate is our mantra, and we reckon showing people see how amazing and healthy proper plantbased food can be is the best way to go to ensure the wonderful environment we enjoy can remain to exist, and one that is free from animal cruelty.
For Now
For now we like to offer customers plant based options which are healthy, different and convenient, ultimately leading to less meat being eaten therefore less animals in factory farms, enoucraging people to eat meatfree at least one day a week.
The Future
Our ultimate goal is to establish our own environmentally-friendly commercial farm animal sanctuary, rescuing cows, pigs, and sheep. Opening it up to the public, to show people how animals can live, and to teach them about how they were treated.
We have already rescued turkeys and chickens, who now live as free as they can (away from the foxes!) in the gardens of our home at Hall Royd.
