Photo: laurat of flickr.com

What one company means by being able to cater for vegans can completely different to another's. How can you tell? Here are some quick questions to ask them for working this out, and to encourage and inform your potential hosts.

The fullness and detail of their answers will tell you a lot as well. If you get brief or incomplete answers dig deeper. Email is the best method as you have it in writing. Sales people find it easy to promise a lot on the phone to get your booking.

Your chances of good service are always going to be best in low season, small accommodation units and the more of you vegans there are together.

Basics

If they can't convincingly assure you of these basics, book with someone else! You want strong positive answers to the following:

• Do you welcome people with special diets?
• Can you cater for vegans in high season as well as low season?
• Do your staff definitely know what vegan means in food terms? - no meat, fish, fowl or eggs, dairy products replace with alternatives; and includes any plant, vegetable, grain, fruit or pulse and items made from these.
• Will you get soya milk in stock in advance?
• Will the vegan meals be more than simply vegetables and grains, and thus contain hearty filling items and lots of protein?
• Have you confirmed all the above with the people managing the resort food?

Better

Get positive answers to the following too:

• Will the head office make sure that the resort staff know in advance the Veggie Snow Catering for vegans - simple check list?
• Will you say if you can't source vegan margarine locally (the hardest item to get sometimes), so I have the opportunity to bring some out myself if I want to?
• Will you buy in peanut butter and yeast extract for breakfast and tea and maybe for satay sauce?
• Will my hosts make more than just pretty arrangements of fruit for dessert?
• Will they buy in soya yogurt, soya cream, and maybe even soya dessert (custard) or plan make the latter two of these?

Best

Ski Beat, even though it is now a medium sized company, manage to do all these. The big companies could too if they felt like it. There are many vegan skiers and boarders out there to make it worth their while, as this level of service makes for very loyal customers.

• Will you make sure the chalet staff have had access to the Veggie Snow Catering Guide and Recipes well in advance, and plan tasty menus with good amounts of protein and interesting desserts?
• For breakfast will you offer items such as scrambled tofu, vegan pancakes, or home-made potato patties?
• Will they make a vegan cake for tea?
• If I book before the season starts will you bring out vegan ingredients from the UK to widen the variety of what we get?

Amazing

If they answer positively to any of the following as well, you will have an amazing holiday and not want to leave. In fact you'll probably book straight away for next year if you can afford it!

• Will you ask for feedback on the menu plan by email in advance?
• Will the local hosts include veggies/vegans?
• Will all guests in the chalet/hotel that week get the vegan cakes and dishes too and be so good everyone is delighted?