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Cactus Kitchen Gals, which was the first plant-based eatery to open in Worthing, has come to Littlehampton and aims to 'show people that anything can be vegan'.

Sophie Cohen, owner of Cactus Kitchen Gals, began the business in Brighton in 2017 with the intention of being a catering company. But after taking part in Worthing' s Food & Drink festival and selling out in two hours, she opened the first fully-vegan eatery in the town and built up a loyal following during the cafe's three years.

Despite the cafe's success, Miss Cohen was forced to move elsewhere after Worthing Borough Council submitted plans to demolish buildings in the High Stree t and replace them with a creative hub.

Her business also naturally transformed during lockdown, when she started focusing more on baking bespoke celebration cakes. Her move to Riverside Industrial Estate in Littlehampton means she now has more space to build on this side of the business and is already planning to expand in the future with the hope that the Littlehampton vegan community will grow as it did in Worthing.

A selection of Cactus Kitchen Gals' baked goods, including cherry bakewells, 'smarties' cookie sarnies and Biscoff rocky road.

She said: "I don’t want to just bake things forever because I’ll get bored, but I don’t want to go back to what I was doing because I feel like that’s been done now.

"There’s still tonnes of things in the vegan food industry that haven’t been done.

"Physically where my shop was, there are now three vegan businesses within a five-minute walk, which is great and exactly what we need, but it does mean that I’m like ‘okay great, what’s next?’.

"A lot of our customers would come from Littlehampton and Rustington, and they would often say that there wasn’t as much in this direction.

Sophie Cohen, owner of Cactus Kitchen Gals.

"There’s something about it here, it reminds me of where Worthing was four years ago."

As she no longer has a site for people to dine-in, the business has taken a new form online. Customers can still get their fix of vegan treats by ordering products from the website, which can be posted or collected from the Littlehampton premises where they are baked. Miss Cohen also sells her products at a number of local markets and vegan festivals across Sussex.

The aim of Cactus Kitchen Gals is to 'show people that anything can be vegan'; currently, the business's most popular product is a Biscoff rocky road.

Miss Cohen said: "One of the biggest compliments I’ve ever had is I did an event in Eastbourne and people were like ‘I’ve been looking for you for ages because they said there was a vegan stand but everything just looks normal.'

Cactus Kitchen Gals' Biscoff brownies, jumbo cinnamon swirl muffins and chorizo, maple and sage 'sausage' rolls.

West Sussex bakery Cactus Kitchen Gals shows people that 'anything can be vegan'