VEGAN ACTION
Corey Evatt: founder of ChattaVegan
By Amy Burger
Corey Evatt is the founder of ChattaVegan, a volunteer-based vegan advocacy organization in Tennessee that launched in 2016. The organization's mission is "to inform Chattanoogans that sustainable, compassionate, and healthy foods can be accessible and delicious!" The organization achieves this mission through its website, which lists information about local restaurants that feature vegan menus or vegan options and provides links to local vegan groups, vegan resources, and recommendations for documentaries, organizations, recipes, podcasts, and sites to shop for clothing and shoes. One of the group's most notable projects was planning and running the city's first vegan festival, ChattaVegan Fest, which was an overwhelming success in October 2019. Evatt estimates that around 1,500 people attended the event, which featured 40 vendors and organizations.
The purpose of ChattaVegan, Evatt says, is "to help show consumers where to find vegan food and help show local restaurants that a market for vegan food [is] growing." Evatt and other volunteers work with restaurants to advocate for changes such as clear labeling of vegan items, introduce new vegan dishes, and host "vegan takeover" events, "where a restaurant goes fully vegan for a night," often on a typically slow night, to help fill otherwise empty seats. He adds that "many restaurants don't even need to add brand new dishes. Sometimes it's just a small tweak to an existing entréthat could be better communicated to customers with a revamped menu. Adding language like "vegan by changing egg to tofu' means an existing breakfast burrito can now serve multiple audiences."
Evatt believes that ChattaVegan's efforts could be replicated elsewhere and has advice for getting started. When working with restaurants, he recommends connecting directly with chefs, whose "curiosity to experiment" helped the group gain buy-in from restaurants. Evatt cautions that "work with businesses must be paired with community building efforts," adding that "advocates need to have customers ready and willing to spend money when new items or events pop up. If not, restaurants will quickly pivot away from vegan offerings and be hesitant to add them again." The key to growing demand for vegan offerings, he says, is to cultivate a community of supporters, which ChattaVegan does through its social media channels and by hosting events like potlucks and volunteer days.
Ultimately, ChattaVegan's role is to provide "a resource for the growing community seeking vegan food in Chattanooga." To learn more about ChattaVegan, visit its website at chattavegan.com
Amy Burger is a former VRG intern who writes for Vegan Journal as a volunteer. Amy lives in Georgia, where she works as a college librarian and part-time teacher. Her hobbies include cooking and traveling.
