Sound Bites

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!!!

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!"