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). Open Mon-Wed 9:30am-6:00pm, Thu 9:30am-6:30pm, Fri-Sat 9:30am-6:00pm.
19 Reviews
First Review by DJAlbertFreeman
Contributions +311
Great vegan selection - Edit
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
Contributions +912
Great selection - Edit
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
Contributions +54
A good vegan shop - Edit
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
Contributions +28
All vegan shop - Edit
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.
Contributions +7048
Totally Sound - Edit
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
Contributions +1287
Fabulous range of vegan foods - Edit
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
Contributions +23
friendly face - Edit
I love this shop. So much wonderful produce to choose from. very reasonably priced and great quality. There is always a friendly face to great you as you enter and are always willing to help when and if you need it. I would highly recommend Sound Bites to anyone who ventures into Derby city.
Pros: Top notch quality, Friendly staff, perfect atmosphere
Contributions +506
great find on a trip through England - Edit
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.
Contributions +16
Delicious dates - Edit
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
Contributions +13
The one and only - Edit
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!
Contributions +63
Nothing short of Brilliant - Edit
I would be lost without Soundbites. They make following a more ethical, eco-friendly lifestyle easy, and I feel lucky to have such a store in my area. They sell a wide range of food, drink, toiletries and household cleaning products all of which are vegan, and a significant proportion fairtrade and organic. They also have an excellent deli-counter selling all manner of goodies such as sandwiches, salads, samosas, cakes - all of which, in my experience, are delicious! Furthermore, it's great to see you can now return bottles of Bio-D cleaning products for refilling, and bring in those pesky plastic bottle tops for recycling (which previously couldn't be recycled) courtesy of Lush Derby. Keep up the good work guys.
Contributions +14
Fantastic Shop - Edit
I love this shop!!! It has friendly staff, a great ethos and lots of delicious products. Also they have really cheap staples like porridge oats, nuts and pulses. They sell loads of fair trade products, all the fruit and veg is organic and they stock lots of local things too.
The best thing about Derby. I'm looking forward to visiting the new cafe opening upstairs.
Pros: Great cake, good value, lovely atmosphere
Contributions +18
A Place Derby Needed - Edit
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
Contributions +11
Just what Derby needs - Edit
I'm not sure what happened for the negative reviews on this site. Sound Bites has continued to be a great whole food shop in the centre of Derby. They have so much crammed in it's quite incredible! Fair enough the cafe has gone, but needs must. As for vegan cakes - you obviously haven't been in recently because they have some EXCELLENT vegan cakes in the chiller cabinet all hand made by a local lady (*drools*). The shop needs your support in these times of chain supermarkets and processed foods. The Nibbler newsletter shows that they are more than part of the community and they are upgrading their online shopping system soon too!
Pros: location, knowledgeable staff, range of products
Cons: veg a bit wilty in hot weather
Contributions +21
Going Downhill - Edit
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
Contributions +7309
"Of Mice and Men" - Edit
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.
Contributions +14
Supports use of 'snap traps' for rodent control - Edit
What started as a very good healthfood shop with a thriving cafe, excellent homemade food and cakes has no descended into a shadow of its former self. The cafe has gone, the food is now bought in and overpriced. The community feel is long gone now that they are established. Worringly they publically declare their use of snap traps http://www.veggieplaces.co.uk/list_reviews.php?place_id=691
and at the same time slur the name of PETA! NOT a place which has my support anymore.
Pros: NONE
Cons: Weak ethics, Overpriced
1 Response
veganftw 22 Feb 2013 - Well PETA completely 100% suck, most people slur the name of PETA. Plus it is very difficult to get rid of pests humanely sometimes, and a place serving food can't take the risk. A sad but true fact.
Contributions +35
Cafe no more! - Edit
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
Contributions +37
Sound as a pound - Edit
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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