5 shop-small gluten and dairy-free brands to try this month

Disclaimer: AD-I was gifted some items from Melted Inside to try.

Today I’m back with another gluten and dairy-free product Roundup. However, this one is a little bit different and focuses solely on shopping small and supporting small artisan brands, who also make amazing gluten-free and dairy-free products! I was kindly sent some of these by Melted Inside.

If you’ve not heard of Melted Inside, it’s a really great website where you can find and support artisan independent food and drink makers, across the UK. The search function makes it really easy to find gluten and dairy-free or vegan food choices and it was great to find some new small businesses that I hadn’t heard of before.

Today I thought I’d share with you some of my favorites, and also a discount code if you’re new and fancy giving Melted Inside a try.

My top tip would be that Melted inside provides a marketplace for artists and producers, but that means that each producer has their own delivery. So you might find it a bit pricey for delivery if you’re buying from lots of different producers at the same time. However, you can bulk buy and that makes things a little bit more affordable!

1.Palace Culture

I’ve talked about here before about my search for vegan cheese and Palace Culture is a really cool vegan cheese brand that makes their cheese from cashew nuts.

Unlike lots of vegan cheeses, this brand is a lot healthier, since they use organic cashews and live cultures, so you’re also getting the benefits of fermented foods. It literally contains a handful of ingredients, and no carragenan, which I’ve talked about before is in a lot of vegan cheesy that isn’t ideal.

I was sent the camembert equivalent, and also their soft cheese equivalent. The soft cheese is amazing and I would 100% recommend. For the camembert, I was a bit annoyed to find out that it didn’t actually melt so I was expecting a cheese that would go gooey in the oven.

But it doesn’t melt (I found out the hard way if you follow my insta stories!) so it’s more of a cheeseboard option than a cooking cheese. However, I think these are a really great company to look at if you’re looking to make your own cheese board for Christmas because they really do look like proper cheese, rather than like synthetic plastic things.

2.Better Nature

If you’re vegan, you might want to check out better nature, who do tempeh in all sorts of different flavours. It’s really high in protein if you’re looking for vegan protein. And although it isn’t marketed as gluten-free, the tantalizing taco doesn’t contain any gluten ingredients and it’s great to just kind of get a meat-free alternative that isn’t really plain and boring!

3. Anandas

Another vegan brand I’m obsessed with is Anandas and their gluten-free wagon wheels. They also do gluten-free, vegan marshmallows. I tried the marshmallows and I wasn’t blown away. However, I’m not vegan and therefore I understand that if you are vegan, this is probably an amazing product. However their gluten-free roundup (which is their wagon wheel style gluten Free vegan biscuit) is incredible, and I’ve ordered it time and time again after discovering them at the allergy and free from show originally. This is an amazing brand that I definitely recommend buying from.

4.Cosy Chocolate Company

I have never really found a vegan hot chocolate that I’ve really enjoyed: I find that they’re either a little bit too watery or don’t taste much just chocolate or you have to use a lot of syrup which contain artificial sweeteners. The cosy chocolate company has a range of vegan hot chocolate and I tried their salted caramel hot chocolate flakes which I think it was the best hot chocolate I’ve ever tried.

It really tastes incredibly chocolatey and rich when made in the microwave with some almond milk. Seriously good!

5. Nutty Nibbles

I’ve heard quite a bit about from other bloggers, they have these little snack bars pieces that are really good for you and packed with nuts and fruit; making them gluten-free, vegan, and organic These are perfect for in your handbag when out and about AND the pot is plastic free!