VEGANUARY is underway and one café in Witney has taken the full plunge by becoming completely vegan.

Previously selling dairy products, Eden Café has now taken the brave step to only serve food and drink that is vegan.

Owner of the café, Becs Hinds, who is a vegan herself, explained why she is making the change.

She said: “It was important for me to align my business with my morals. Personally, the animal welfare aspect of veganism drove my decision. Recently there has been much focus in the media on the environmental issues we are facing as a planet and animal agriculture plays a huge part in that.

“So, as I did more research, I started cutting down the non-vegan menu options and then decided to completely remove them altogether."

Throughout December, the café slowly made the transition to become completely vegan.

Mrs Hinds was mindful that the change may be too much for customers as only a small proportion of them are vegan, so she held promotions to ease people into it.

She said: “To get people to try vegan coffee we gave out 100 discount cards. We didn’t want people to pay full price for something that they may not like, and it worked out really well.

“A lot of customers loved our flat white coffee made with oat milk.”

Although it is a daring move, she hopes that the café will retain its popularity and support.

She said: “It did take a while to make this change because of the potential loss of customers but you can lose customers for many reasons.

“We hope that we will continue to be as well supported as we have been since our beginning. We would be sad to lose anyone due to this change, but we also understand that it’s the customer’s money to spend how they wish.”

Mrs Hinds has seen great support from regular customers and said older people are more open to trying vegan options such as coffees with plant-based milk as opposed to cow’s milk.

The café makes its 100 per cent vegan debut on Wednesday.