Vegan fast food sounds like quite the oxymoron, but there is a growing community demand for it in DeKalb.

From what used to be the basement of the House Café, 263 Lincoln Highway, Sunny Day Bakery is supplying Northern Illinois towns with baked goods, sandwiches, soups and salads.

Vegetarians and vegans do not usually have much of a choice when it comes to buying quick, prepared food, but Sunny Day Bakery offers vegan friendly food products.

“Part of why we’re doing this is because vegans are people too,” said Chuck Demaio, owner and solitary baker of Sunny Day Bakery. “They need to eat on the run sometimes, just like everyone. We want people to feel like they aren’t missing something because they chose to be different.”

Vegan food, by definition, does not contain any animal products. Organic means that the ingredients used have never been exposed to synthetic chemical fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides either when they were grown or when they were processed.

“I don’t like using the word vegan too often on the packaging; I know it can scare people off,” said Demaio, an alumnus of NIU’s nutrition and food service program. “I’d rather speak through the ingredient list. You can pronounce everything.”

Sunny Day Bakery’s products are sold primarily at Duck Soup Coop, 129 E. Hillcrest Road, in ready-to-go packaging, though they are also available at the House Café, and in health food stores ranging from Rockford to Libertyville.
“Duck Soup is definitely our home,” Demaio said.

Duck Soup Coop carries many local alternative food organizations’ products, including organic grains from Plapp Family Organics of Malta and organic produce from Stone Corner Farm Market of Oregon, Ill.

Most markets involved with organic foods are experiencing growth.

Locally, DeKalb County holds the largest acreage of certified organic farms in the state, according to slowfoodusa.org.

Duck Soup Coop has recently experienced growth and used the extra income to refigure the store this last year and will have a grand reopening on Sept. 29.

“We support local organic food suppliers like Sunny Day Bakery as much as we can, people like knowing where their food comes from,” said Loreen Stravers, assistant manager of Duck Soup Coop.

“We call it a family business because we get our friends to help, but to survive off it, we’re going to have to get larger,” Demaio said.

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