How veganfood.ie Works & How We're Funded
Transparency matters — especially on a directory site. Here is exactly what veganfood.ie is, how a venue ends up listed, and how we make money. No fine print and no surprises.
What veganfood.ie is
veganfood.ie is a free, Ireland-focused directory and editorial guide covering vegan and vegan-friendly restaurants, cafés, food trucks, brands and shops across the island. Our goal is to be the single best place online to find a vegan meal in Ireland — searchable by city, area and cuisine, and updated as venues open, close, or change.
How venues end up on the site
A venue can appear on veganfood.ie in three ways:
- Editorial inclusion (free). We add venues we think readers should know about. We do not charge for editorial inclusion and venues do not pay to be reviewed.
- Free claim listing. Any vegan-friendly Irish business can claim a free listing via the List Your Business form. Free listings include name, address, phone, hours, one photo and a short description.
- Premium listings (paid). Businesses that want a richer profile, more photos, top placement in their category, an embeddable badge, and access to a basic analytics dashboard can pay for a premium tier. Pricing is published openly and listed in our plan ladder.
What is — and is not — paid placement
This is the bit we want to be very clear about:
- Our editorial city guides (Dublin, Cork, Galway, Belfast, Limerick and so on) are written based on what we believe is genuinely worth recommending. Premium listing status does not buy a spot in the editorial top picks. A venue can be premium and not be in the top picks; a venue can be in the top picks without being premium.
- Our directory pages show every claimed listing in a city or category. Premium listings receive top placement and a "featured" visual treatment in the directory. This is paid placement and we mark it as such.
- Sponsored features and brand partnerships are clearly labelled "Sponsored" or "In partnership with" at the top of the article. They are paid for by the brand and are written separately from our editorial guides.
How we make money
veganfood.ie has four revenue streams. Readers never pay for anything on the site.
- Premium listings. Businesses pay a monthly fee for a richer listing and category placement. This is the largest revenue stream and the one that funds the bulk of editorial work.
- Sponsored content and brand partnerships. Irish vegan brands occasionally pay us to write a sponsored review or run a campaign-tied feature (for example, around Veganuary). These are always labelled.
- Affiliate links. Some of our blog posts (especially product guides — vegan cheese, vegan protein, meal plans) include affiliate links to retailers. If you click through and buy, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Affiliate links never decide what we recommend; they sit on top of an editorial choice we would have made anyway.
- Display advertising. Once site traffic is high enough we may include carefully-vetted display ads from vegan brands and health-food retailers. These will be clearly distinguishable from editorial content.
What this means for readers
- You never pay us anything. The directory and the editorial guides are free.
- Editorial recommendations are independent. A venue cannot pay its way into a "Best of" list. If we recommend a place, it is because we think it is genuinely worth your time.
- Sponsored content is labelled. If something is paid for by a brand, the article will say so at the top.
- Affiliate links are disclosed. Articles that contain affiliate links carry an inline note. You can always ignore the link and search for the product yourself — we don't lock anything behind a click-through.
Editorial standards
Every named restaurant, café, brand, shop or person on veganfood.ie is verified at the time of publication via the venue's own website, social channels, or directly with the business. We re-verify city guides on a rolling cycle and remove venues that close or stop trading. If you spot an entry that is out of date, please flag it via the contact form and we will recheck within a working week.
How we handle data
If you submit a listing or sign up to the newsletter, we collect only what we need to do that one job (name, business name, contact details, the listing content you provided). We do not sell email addresses or business contact details to third parties. The full data policy lives on our privacy page.
Questions or corrections
If you have a question about how we operate, want to suggest a venue, want to flag a closure, or want to raise a concern about something on the site, email us at hello@veganfood.ie or use the contact form. We aim to reply within three working days.