Published: March 19, 2021 | Updated: 20th March 2021
It began life as Poole’s only completely meat-free takeaway but – from March 19 – doubled in size as it moved into Bournemouth and Christchurch.
V. Dorset Delivery, which offers plant-based burgers. fries, salads, desserts and more, has opened a second kitchen in Boscombe.
And Keri Astill-Frew, Owner and Head Chef, couldn’t be happier.
She said: “I’m really excited.
“We’ve always felt that Bournemouth would be good for us.
“This will double the areas we serve and we can’t wait to get started.”
Keri founded V. Dorset Delivery in 2018, a year after turning vegetarian.
The 33-year-old worked as a professional chef for more than a decade after training in Michelin star kitchens.
But she fell out of love with the sector and retrained as a gardener after gaining a distinction in horticulture at Kingston Maurward College.
Keri rediscovered her taste for the food sector while working as a recipe developer for Tom Amery, MD of The Watercress Company in Dorchester.
And it was with his full support that Keri decided to go it alone despite never intending to run her own business.
She said: “When I was younger I used to think why would anyone want to do that?
“But I like to be in control and now I can’t imagine doing anything else.”
V. Dorset started small by selling its range of food at festivals, beginning with Brighton Vegan Festival.
Keri and husband, Dan.
The summer of 2018 saw Keri, and husband Dan, who works at Sunseeker International, attend around 20 festivals.
The food is cooked in V. Dorset’s custom-built prep kitchen at the couple’s Parkstone home with Keri using her skills and knowledge to create tasty veggie and vegan street food.
“I think we launched the business at just the right time because no-one then was really filling the gap.
“Our empire, as I call it, was built on loaded roast potatoes – roast potatoes with 25 different toppings [pictured left].
“They were all vegetarian but we didn’t heavily promote that,” said Keri.
The next year – 2019 – V. Dorset attended events such as the Isle of Wight Festival involving up to eight staff and also introduced a dessert stall at the Southampton Christmas Market.
The pandemic saw off any hopes of repeating the festival success in 2020 so, instead, the business concentrated on home deliveries, free to selected Poole and Bournemouth postcodes.
But Keri, who has been highly commended for the last two years in the Entrepreneur of the Year category of the Dorset Food, Drink and Farming Awards, said: “I’m very ambitious for the business and put everything into it.
“We’ve been looking for a while to move into Bournemouth and Christchurch and considered, perhaps, using a pub kitchen.
“Then we heard about a warehouse unit in Boscombe which was being turned into four kitchens for businesses like ours.
“It will be ideal.”
Keri and Dan, 34, picked up the keys on March 15 with the kitchen up and running four days later.
Keri said: “We’ll be able to serve the majority of BCP postcodes with both kitchens.
“We’re also taking on our first PAYE member of staff, Curtis Lane, who will be the Kitchen Supervisor at Poole.
“Eventually we want to expand to other areas of Dorset and, perhaps, further afield.
“For the time being, though, we’re just excited to be bringing our food to even more people in this area.”
