Holland and Barrett

This store is much improved since it moved to larger and more accessible premises in the centre of Durham. It's a nice bright and fresh store with a good selection of refrigerated and frozen vegan products. They always sell the old reliable products such as Frys and Vbites but also add new products to the vegan market such as the fantastic Torfurky. I like to stock up when they have one of their buy one get one half price offers on.

I don't think I'd find it easy to survive as a vegan here without an H&B. There's some vegetarian and vegan frozen options available in Tesco as well, but the fridge section (vegan cheese, yoghurt and more) is completely indispensable. I wasn't thrilled with the own-brand B vitamin supplements I bought, the caplets are unnecessarily large and fishy-tasting. Also, own-brand nuts, seeds etc. are overpriced. However, there's a great selection of vegan essentials as well as junk food.

Durham's fresh and modern H&B's has re-located to Silver Street in December 2013 with a damn good fridge and freezer section packed with delights from Frys and V-Bites. Some H&B's don't have refrigerated stock so this one is a bonus. One new feature is that they sell infused olive oils from vats. Maybe I will try this. Why not. Quite often there are buy one item get one half price or buy one get one for a penny but I do feel they artificially inflate the prices slightly for the period of the promotion. One good thing is that the till works out the bill in the favour of the customer i.e. four items purchased at different prices will even out to give discount on the two most expensive ones. You will find this new branch on Silver Street opposite M&S and Tesco just before the Market Place.