• CLOSED: Sound Bites

  • (20)
    10

    Closed

  • Health-food-store Health Store
    Vegan

Not-for-profit workers co-operative whole food shop. Sells organic wholefoods, vegetables, eco bodycare and household products, and alternative magazines. Produces a quarterly newsletter, has community noticeboards, and a meeting room available for hire. See online shop for home delivery. Yaffle Cafe is upstairs with different hours (Mon-Sat 11am-5pm). Reported closed June 2023.


Venue map for Sound Bites
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20 Reviews

First Review by DJAlbertFreeman

LouisaSmith

Points +259

Vegan
25 Nov 2022

Bites bites

Completely vegan shop that sells groceries, toiletries (vegan and eco friendly soaps, shampoo etc) and household essentials. They even have a little baked goods section where you can buy freshly made vegan cakes/tarts/etc. Very cute place💗

Updated from previous review on 2022-11-25

Pros: Completely vegan

Cons: Expensive

Toria535

Points +76

Vegan
09 May 2022

Great shop

Lots of Vegan goodies, Staff very friendly and helpful

Pros: Lots of Vegan options , Fresh Vegetables , Friendly staff

Cons: Location , Parking

SarahharaS

Points +59

Vegan
10 Nov 2019

Fully Vegan Shop

I have been shopping here since it first opened. Lots of variety. Wheelchair access is limited due to narrow aisles but most important section (cake & chocolate) is near the front.

Updated from previous review on 2018-04-24

Pros: 100% vegan, Lots of options

Cons: Limited access for wheelchairs

Pekrova

Points +937

Vegan
16 Apr 2019

Visited Ten+ years later

Whilst visiting family we needed our usual food shop, which seemed challenging around where my parents live. I remembered Sound Bites from visiting as a teenager and so we made the trip. Got everything we needed and more- a really thoughtful choice of products and the two cakes we bought from the deli counter were amazing!

Pros: Fresh baked cakes, Variety of products

AleshTomanek

Points +92

Vegan
03 Nov 2018

Possibly the best and most important shop in Derby

Soundbites is a fantastic place for any vegans and non-vegans. The staff is very friendly and helpful. The selection of vegan cheeses and vegan food is astounding. They offer lot of Asian ingredients, grains, nuts, seeds, flours and everything you could ever want.

Pros: Friendly staff

thatvibrantchick

Points +77

Vegan
31 Dec 2017

Amazing vegan shop!

I visit this shop at least once a week to pick up essentials and I love the variety of products I can find here. The staff are always super friendly and helpful!

Pros: Very good selection of products , Always friendly helpful staff

Chris_D

Points +909

Vegan
07 Apr 2017

Great vegan selection

Full of fairly hard-to-find vegan groceries, particularly in the extensive fridge section. Lots of vegan takeaway food and cakes too.

Pros: Great chiller section, Vegan takeaway food

CLRtraveller

Points +8091

Vegan
26 Jan 2017

Great selection

Great little store with a full array of vegan products, fresh organic produce, packaged goods, condiments, freshly made sandwiches and hot takeaway snacks, chocolate bars and more. One small table at the back to eat at, or go upstairs to Yaffle Café to eat, or do takeaway.

Updated from previous review on 2017-01-26

Pros: wide selection of products, all vegan, fresh, organic produce, takeaway food

rowansilverbreeze

Points +132

Vegan
13 Jul 2016

A good vegan shop

Mines a mixed review. It's great that they are a vegan wholefood shop but they are very pricey. I love their vegan sausage and sage rolls. They seem to have good ethics but didn't know about the inhumane mice traps. Not good. Sort it out!! Get humane ones. Some of the staff are friendly, the rest are very cliqey and not at all friendly. Even though it's a co-op it needs someone to teach some of the staff about professionalism. Prefer to go to independent whole food shops like Roots, Screaming carrot ( a vegan bakery and shop) and The Bluebird shop ( all vegan), in Nottingham.

Updated from previous review on 2015-07-21

Pros: vegan, some tasty baked goods

Cons: pricey, some staff unprofessional

yixzy

Points +84

Vegan
26 Apr 2016

All vegan shop

Lovely little shop. Everything is vegan which is great. And although small stocks a surprising amount of things! Sells snacks too, the samosas are lovely and very good value for money. Good hours too.

Pros: Very comprehensive stock!, Friendly staff., Open late too!

Cons: None, only a little small in size.

hack_man

Points +23142

Vegan
23 Nov 2014

Totally Sound

Love this shop, first impressions were perfect. Full of tightly packed vegan delights including stuff I had never come across before such as a totally amazing range of fridge-based raw fudge. Absolutely awesome. This place sells anything a typical vegan kitchen desires from flour to floor cleaner and vegetables to vegan meat. I wish I could have spent more time here but was on a tight schedule to catch a train to Mansfield for the League 2 game against Plymouth with my mate Mr P who is a vegetarian conversion work in progress.

Pros: amazing range , friendly staff, decent prices

Miggi

Points +2647

Vegan
12 May 2014

Fabulous range of vegan foods

Downstairs from Yaffle, we stocked up on vegan food for our holiday. They stock most brands of vegan cheese, organic fruit and veg, some foods we haven't seen anywhere else and locally made pies and sosrolls, vegan croissants, choccy spread etc.
Great shop with a nice community feel to it!

Pros: Vegan foods inc croissants, Range of product, Friendly

turtleveg

Points +1590

Vegan
13 Sep 2013

great find on a trip through England

I was only in Derby for an afternoon and loved finding Sound Bites. It's a typical natural foods store, small but full of interesting things from necessities to hard to find vegan treats. And when I spotted they were selling the full line of Go Max Go candy bars, which are from the US but are actually hard to find except for a couple flavors - I was so excited I bought a few Thumbs Up! Cashier was helpful and pleasant.
Great location, a short walk from The Strand.

Rudbeckia

Points +20

Vegan
19 Jun 2013

Delicious dates

I have used Soundbites a few times for veg boxes. Excellent service and the fruit is ripe, tasty and luscious. I wish there was a shop like this on every high street as real greengrocers have disappeared and can't always get to markets.

Pros: Fresh produce , Vegan and vegetarian sandwiches, Huge range of animal friendly products

Cons: Need more branches to take over the world:-), Tempting to spend too much, Basic store cupboard stuff expensive

sariofthepie

Points +17

Vegetarian
04 Oct 2011

The one and only

The best food store in Derby for sure. A truly magnificent array of whole foods and all vegan. The staff are all really friendly and the soups/salads/sandwiches are tasty too!

veganftw

Points +22

Vegan
29 Jan 2010

A Place Derby Needed

A great shop, something that Derby desperately needed, due to it lacking in vegan shops and cafes. Also right near to the bus station.

Eco-friendly too, with products at reasonable prices which are organic, sometimes fair trade and packaged in biodegrable cellopane.

Also sells a variety of chocolate!! Plus sandwiches, salad, cake and soup etc.

Pros: Sells local produce, Eco-friendly, Vegan

wob.youth

Points +27

Vegan
06 Apr 2009

Going Downhill

What was once a vibrant shop/cafe with close links to the community is now a shadow of its former self.
Cafe is gone, friendliness has been replaced with a strange atmosphere and the quality of the veg boxes has taken a dramatic down too : /
Is a shame.

Pros: Location

Cons: No cafe, Atmosphere, Quality of produce

JohnnySensible

Points +7596

Herbivore
01 Dec 2008

"Of Mice and Men"

Have not visited yet so disregard my "Rating" - looking forward to my first visit.

Good / informative site - this is a bold "take" on running a compassionate business.

The store is almost 3 years old now - I hope that they continue on - they are doing a lot of good work in Derby.

"Sound Bites" have an excellent newsletter - see their site for back issues.

Read about the "Sound Bites" story on page 20 of this issue of Vegan Views - http://www.ibiblio.org/veganviews/vv109.pdf
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Mice etc. - my experience is that it is best to be completely open about how a business manages mice / insect visitors.

I have read Patrick's note on VeggiePlaces - I have a similar experience of UK Health Inspectors - I was given a similar ultimatum in the 90's - "kill or close" - we caught as many mice as we could but some did die - even in the best humane traps that we could find.

See - http://www.petacatalog.org/prodinfo.asp?number=HP200 - there must be a UK supplier - "Sound Bites" may like to stock & sell them also!

I remember the constant "battle" very well - we even invited some customers / friends to wander around the building / cellars & give their input re. "mouse proofing".

I have met farmers who provided homes for numerous unloved / abandoned (neutered) cats - cats are not an option for a food store which is locked up at night.

Very good info - http://www.nps.gov/public_health/inter/info/general/NPS_RP_Manual_v2.pdf
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A planet infested by humans! - http://infestedwithhumans.com/?tab=Home
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Every business makes some mistakes - the trick is to learn from the mistakes & move forward.

skinnydog

Points +59

Vegan
21 Jan 2008

Cafe no more!

They don't have a cafe as such, but there are two tables where you can sit and eat any food bought from the shop. It's a shame they don't make their own vegan cakes as they have the facilities. Derby is lacking vegan cakes!!!

Pros: It's vegan products, Good info board, Wide selection of stuff

Cons: odd atmosphere, they DON'T use humane pest controlls, Watch out for poor veg

DJAlbertFreeman

Points +47

Vegan
03 Oct 2006

Sound as a pound

Review: This excellent little shop has been there since December 2005. They have been ambitious despite its modest size, using the venue as a wholefood shop and social change networking point. They stock a range of vegan foods, and locally produced veg, and also have a small deli with some lovely takeaway salads and sandwiches. The tofu and seaweed rissole/pattie thingy beginning with a "G" was the nicest tofu thing I've had in ages..! They are currently re-assessing how viable a cafe is in their small shop, but I hope they manage to find a solution because as their excellent newsletter "The Nibbler" says, "every city needs a veggie cafe!"

Pros: organic, excellent food, ambitious

Cons: I don't live in Derby, size of premises




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