Press & Media
Everything you need to write about The Vegan School — facts, bios, photos and coverage, all current.
If something you need isn't here, email me, and I'll send it ASAP. I answer these myself.
— Ashish Santhalia, Course Director
FAST FACTS
Name | The Vegan School
|
What it is | India's first vegan culinary school |
Founded | September 2022 — first batch |
Founders | Ashish Santhalia and Nisha Garg |
Course | 7 weeks, residential, fully hands-on |
Curriculum | 70+ lessons across 10 modules |
Batch size | 14 students |
Students trained | 200+ |
Placement | 100% internship placement for interested students |
Countries | 30+, across six continents |
International students | 75+ |
Award | Impact Maker of the Year 2026, Vegan India Conference |
Location | Alto Porvorim, Goa, India |
Website | www.theveganschool.org |
IN THE MEDIA
Vkind | Culinary Dreams Blossom: The Vegan School's Journey in Goa | Dec 2023 | |
O Heraldo | Saving the environment by going vegan | Nov 2023 | |
The Navhind Times | When nature is your kitchen | 14 Jun 2022 | |
Compassion Magazine | India's First Vegan Culinary School To Open In Goa | 2022 | |
Vegan First | Goa To Get India's First Vegan Culinary Institute | Jun 2022 | |
The Organic Magazine | Goa goes vegan | Apr 2022 | |
Center for Ayurveda Studies (Indica) | First Vegan Culinary School Opens in Goa | Apr 2022 |
BOILERPLATE — USE WHICHEVER FITS
25 WORDS
The Vegan School is India's first vegan culinary school. Founded in Goa in 2022, it has trained over 200 students from more than 30 countries.
50 WORDS
The Vegan School is India's first vegan culinary school, founded in Goa in 2022 by Ashish Santhalia and Chef Nisha Garg. Its seven-week residential course covers 70+ hands-on lessons in batches of 14. Over 200 students from more than 30 countries have trained there. Named Impact Maker of the Year 2026 by the Vegan India Conference
100 WORDS
The Vegan School is India's first vegan culinary school, based in Alto Porvorim, Goa. It was founded in 2022 by Ashish Santhalia, a former educator, and Chef Nisha Garg, who trained in plant-based cooking in Sweden and cooked at the Stockholm vegan restaurant Vaxthuset. The school runs a seven-week residential course — 70+ hands-on lessons across 10 modules, taught in batches of 14 by a rotating faculty of specialists. Over 200 students from more than 30 countries and six continents have completed it. Every graduate is placed in an internship.
STORY ANGLES
Happy to talk through any of these, or something else entirely.
Who actually shows up to a vegan cooking school
Fourteen people in one kitchen: someone in their twenties starting a career, someone in their fifties who's just left one, a decade-long vegan, and someone who still eats dairy at home. Career starters, career changers, working chefs adding plant-based technique, and home cooks with no professional plans at all — more than a third flying in from outside India. The assumption is that a vegan school teaches vegans. The room is far wider, and the mix is the story.
Reverse culinary migration
Indians have flown abroad to train as chefs for decades. Students from 30+ countries now fly to Goa to learn cooking instead. That direction of travel is new.
India's first — and what four years proved
The school opened on a hunch that demand existed. 200+ graduates later: what the demand actually looked like, and how much of it we got wrong.
Where the graduates went
Cafés, cloud kitchens, recipe development, wellness retreats — and one alumna cooking privately for Virat Kohli and his family. Career paths that didn't exist in India five years ago.
What culinary training actually costs
We compiled fee structures for vegan and mainstream culinary schools worldwide and worked out cost per taught hour. Nobody else has published that comparison. Numbers available on request.
🏆 Recognised as Impact Maker of the Year 2026 by the Vegan India Conference
Vegan India Conference, Mumbai — India's largest plant-based industry event. The award recognises organisations that have measurably advanced plant-based food in India.
How it started
In 2021, Nisha Garg wanted to study plant-based cooking professionally. She looked for a structured vegan culinary course in India and found that none existed.
So she flew to Sweden instead — a diploma at Vegchef Academy, then a job at Vaxthuset, a vegan fine-dining restaurant in Stockholm. Back in Goa, her husband Ashish Santhalia kept returning to the same thought: most people who want this training cannot fly to Europe for it.
The Vegan School opened in September 2022 with a single batch. Four years later it has taught students from more than thirty countries, and the majority of its Indian applicants are not vegan at all — they are vegetarians who want professional kitchen training that doesn't begin with meat.
Meet The Founders
Chef Nisha Garg
CHEF INSTRUCTOR
Holds a diploma in plant-based cooking from Vegchef Academy, Sweden, and cooked at Vaxthuset in Stockholm. She designs the curriculum, leads the hands-on classes and personally trains every batch.
Ashish Santhalia
COURSE DIRECTOR
Master's in Global Sales & Marketing from Austria, B.Ed from India, eight years in education before opening the school. Runs admissions, student experience and partnerships. First point of contact.
PHOTOS & LOGO
Licence: Click here to open Google Drive and download the image.
These images are free to use for editorial coverage of The Vegan School, provided you credit The Vegan School.
Please do not use them in advertising or for AI training without prior permission.
PRESS CONTACT
Ashish Santhalia
Course Director
hello@theveganschool.com
+91 99037 61884 (WhatsApp)
Alto Porvorim, Goa, India · IST (UTC+5:30)
VISITING
Journalists, photographers and researchers are welcome.
Classes run Monday to Friday, 10:30am to 6pm. The best day to come is the last day of a batch, when students plan, prep and serve a full sit-down lunch for invited guests. Get in touch, and I'll tell you when the next one is.