A Vegan Chat with Shiloh of Mylk Bar Vegan Sweets

 We all remember taking our pocket money down to the local milk bar to treat ourselves to a few dollars worth of sweets back in the day, don’t we? These are fond memories of childhood and with a little help from Melbourne based Mylk Bar Vegan Sweets, you may just be able to relive these wonderful times! The difference this time is that Mylk Bar Vegan Sweets are 100% vegan, which means no animal by-product (especially nasty gelatin) will be found in any of their delicious sweets.

We wanted to find out a little more about the vegan sweet scene and how Mylkbar Vegan Sweets are approaching it. In this latest feature, we chat with founder Shiloh to get the inside scoop on all things sweet.

Enjoy the chat!

Tell us a little about Mylkbar Sweets and how you got started?

So in 2018 my partner and I went to Scandinavia and they are big on sweets over there so it was incredible going into the candy shops and even the supermarket getting to pick out vegan lollies from the pick n mix.

The vegan options over there were amazing and were very much thinking that we would get the same variety of vegan sweets, but nothing was appearing on the shelves so last year we thought right! Let’s get these lollies over here so every vegan with a sweet tooth can tuck into some awesome candy without the cruelty! (also non-vegans can enjoy the candy too!!)

What don’t people know about ‘traditional’ sweets?
If going vegan what should we be looking out for?

Most lollies and sweets will contain gelatine, which is made from skin, cartilage, and bones from animals. Look out for the ingredients/colour E120, carmine or cochineal which pose as a red colour but is made from dried crushed bodies of a small insect. Shellac or confectioners glaze, milk, honey and egg are also to be looked out for. Also beeswax! It’s quite important to enquire with nonvegan brands about the manufacturing of their sweets as some can be fully vegan ingredients listed but can be processed with beeswax or shellac and that is not listed. 

What are your best sellers & why do you think that is?

Our best sellers are the Bubblegum Mermaids and the Giant gummy Strawberries! The option for vegan non-fizzy gummy sweets has been quite sparse so we think our customers love having the option of these! They are fun shapes as well as being yum!

Any new products in the works right now?

Yes, we have got so many new sweets that have just arrived, we think the Peach Rings and Teddy Bears will become a big hit.

Where do you hope to be in 3-5 years with the business? Any lofty goals?

We really just hope more brands and companies can see the demand of veganism and take note of the fact their processes and way of doing things don’t need to include suffering and animal cruelty.

We hope to see more vegan sweets coming from the big companies in Australia (even if that does mean major competition for us 😜).

What other people or brands inspire your vegan journey?

We have been long time fans of James Aspey & Joey Carbstrong for the last 5 years and still they keep doing an inspiring job after all this time. It’s also been an incredible thing to see how much variety and options we do now have to eat, like the soy cheese at coles was once the only ‘easily’ accessible option (for some) and now there are these amazing businesses like Noo Moo Foods and Artisa (to name a couple) making all our vegan cheese dreams come true!

Who should we interview next?

If you haven’t yet @thegrassfeddoughnut who do the most insane doughnuts in Perth or @wearenutie an eatery in Sydney who does phenomenal vegan cakes and desserts (also vegan savoury foods but we love sugar).
Honestly, they both have incredible mouth-watering goods!

Amazing, thank you so much Shiloh, for sharing your story with us today!

After the chat, we got the chance to sample a large assortment of their sweets and we were so impressed! Some sweet, some sour and all delicious.

So we would encourage anyone who is looking to get their sugar hit or want to revisit their childhood sweet range, to jump on and take a look at Mylkbar Vegan Sweets today! You can also follow them on their Instagram Page Here too.

Thanks for reading and to read more vegan chats, visit our Vegan Chat With Page Here.

LGV!