A couple of weeks ago my partner and I attended an awards event for the Hampshire and IOW Sustainable Business Partnership. The Barn Vegetarian Guest House had been shortlisted as a finalist in the Small Business Category. As is customary we were asked if we had any dietary requirements and I told them that we were both vegan. A week or so before the event I double checked that we were going to be catered for and was assured that the hotel (a four star 'posh' country hotel) said they were fine about doing a vegan dinner.

The event was disappointing. It seemed to revolve around the sponsors who were largely big businesses trying to clothe themselves in a green mantle by supporting the awards. The programme for the evening had acres of print about the sponsors (12 pages in all) while the shortlisted businesses (around 15 or so) got two pages. We were also given the most astonishingly poor meal. We had a starter of melon with some very sweet berries followed by a small white wrap with some red peppers inside and a dry 'salad' of lettuce and tomatoes. Dessert was fruit salad in sugar water. No protein to speak of and no real thought or imagination. And hardly sustaining!

I suppose it's what we might have expected but it's just typical of the mainstream catering industry. Vegetarians are often tolerated but usually fobbed off with a vegetable lasagne or mushroom stroganoff. Vegans are generally a step too far and, if they're lucky, get offered the kind of meal your average rabbit would enjoy. You then get charged a similar amount to people who have tucked into several ounces of steak!

I'd love to hear about the worst meal you've been subjected to in a restaurant or hotel.....

Oh - and no, we didn't win. But just as well really the sponsors of the Small Business Award were the international space and civil defence firm that own the company making the European Airbus - how appropriate......