5 years ago, I was presented with the opportunity to buy a share of Demuths Cookery School, a well-established business that was flourishing as the interest in veganism was at its height. Looking back at it now, it is crazy how different things were in that pre-COVID world.

I’m sure you’ve all seen lots of long Instagram captions from small businesses saying just how tough it’s been since, with no area unaffected - from staffing to business rates to food price rises, all with a customer base that is, understandably, also struggling, or at least being more cautious with their spending given the current climate. It was the same for Demuths – it was hard. And to make things harder we were also about to lose the right to use the name, meaning we would lose the 30-odd years of brand recognition that came with it.

And so just over a year ago, I announced the end of Demuths and with it, the end of an era. But the outpouring of love and support we received at that time made me and Matt realise that it was too good a thing to let go of just yet… we had to give it one more go. And so that’s what we did. We became Morso Vegan.

To say that we relaunched on a shoestring is somewhat of an understatement and since starting Morso in August, we radically changed the way the business was run – cutting costs everywhere possible, leaving just the 2 of us running absolutely all parts of the business. I never used to be in the kitchen but now I’m in there every day, as well as being the cleaner, graphic designer, bookkeeper, social media manager – all of it! Doing whatever we could to make it work. It’s safe to say we’ve poured our heart and soul into this place – there’s been blood, sweat, tears, cuts and burns…

It’s been long hours and sleepless nights, but we’ve also had an indescribably wonderful time doing it - every single person that has come through the door since August has been an absolute pleasure to either cook with or cook for. We’ve been overwhelmed by the wonderful reviews we’ve received and especially love how many repeat customers we have who keep coming back for more.

We’ve been so lucky in this way but unfortunately in other areas our luck has run out. Prices continue to rise, all our bills have gone up again this month, we have no financial backing, and our landlord is now making requests we simply cannot meet. And so, it is with a broken heart, I’m saying that soon we will no longer be able to operate from this kitchen.

We are still in shock – this wasn’t part of the plan even 72 hours ago, we literally had to make this decision very quickly over the weekend. We are still processing it all and are not yet sure what will happen next – whether we find someone who wants to continue with the school here, or we take a break and figure out what might be next for us. But importantly, we wanted to let you all know ASAP.

For the next couple of months, we will be running all our classes as usual until our final class on 10th July. We will be contacting anyone who has booked beyond that date and have crammed lots of extra dates in between now and then, so we really hope we get to see you one last time.

If Demuths was my business, then Morso is my baby and this time it really hurts. We tried. But thank you again to everyone who has supported us and allowed us to share our passion, it means the world.

Georgia 💚