A Sarasota Influencer Just Won a Huge Vegan Media Award
Image: Courtesy Photo
Sarasota, like many cities across the country, is obsessed with supermarkets. News of an Aldi or Sprouts coming to town eclipses stories that are arguably far more consequential to everyday life. When Trader Joe’s opened in 2012, more than a thousand people applied to be a part of the crew and hundreds of “Trader Joe’s evangelists” camped overnight to be among the first through its doors. Among these shoppers fixatedly tracking seasonal snack drops, limited-edition flavors and cult-favorite finds is a devoted subcommunity scanning shelves for dairy-free dupes and plant based innovations.
For a growing number of these vegan or vegan-curious consumers, one Sarasota man has become their guide through the grocery aisles. Kreg Sterns, the face behind Big Box Vegan—a platform which includes a website, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook—has built a following by posting daily updates on plant-based finds, accidentally vegan snacks and new releases from big box retailers across the country. Recently, he was named Favorite Vegan Instagrammer in the Veggie Awards hosted by VegNews, the largest vegan media brand in the world.
Unlike many content creators who carefully engineered their online personas from the start, Sterns’ path into social media stardom happened organically. Before Big Box Vegan, he was—and still is—a graphic designer, working in creative services for Sarasota County. Prior to that, he spent 14 years as a graphic designer for Whole Foods Market. Eight years ago, he started casually posting his food finds on his personal account. When people started responding enthusiastically, his wife encouraged him to dig deeper and share more. At first, he wasn’t so sure. “That’s dumb, I can’t do that,” he recalls telling her. Still, he took the step—and it caught on fast.
“I think a lot of content creators start on a whim. You don’t know what’s going to resonate with people,” he says. “When [your audience] starts to grow, it’s a surprise. Then the questions [become], how do you manage it? What do you really want to do or say? My goal was always just to share fun finds..”
Now, Sterns is often the first to post about new products—including plant-based Hershey’s bars, a Trader Joe’s “Bloomin’ Onion” dupe, and Walmart’s plant-based pizza—hitting shelves nationwide. “I jokingly call myself the TMZ of vegan news,” he says. The comparison isn’t entirely inaccurate. Over the years, he’s cultivated a network of followers across the country who send him tips and store sightings before products are even officially announced. “It can’t be stealth if it’s on the shelf,” he says.
While many vegan influencers take a health or ethical approach to their accounts, Sterns wants his platform to be a space for people to learn and explore, free of social pressure. “I let everybody make the ethical, environmental and health choices that resonate with them. I don’t try to judge, gatekeep, or preach to anyone about veganism,” he says. “If anything, I want people to see that something can be made vegan and say, ‘Oh, I never knew that!’ It’s always been my mission to bring veganism to the masses and show that there are a ton of options out there beyond carrot sticks and french fries.”
That ethos struck a chord. In winning the VegNews award, he was competing against two other accounts with followings three times larger than his. In the end, his perspective—paired with his focus on box-store availability and food accessibility—carried him through. “People live in food deserts,” he says. “Sometimes the only option they have is the Dollar Tree. I’m always conscious of that.”
Today, plant-based shoppers are operating in a whole new world. While veganism may no longer dominate trend forecasts the way it did when The Economist famously declared 2019 “The Year of the Vegan,” the movement itself is alive and well. More than 30 million people participated in “Veganuary” this year—a 16 percent increase from 2025—as plant-based eating continues to move into the mainstream, fueled in part by highly influential figures like Billie Eilish, who regularly promotes veganism across social media and has even required food vendors at some concerts to serve exclusively plant-based meals.
Options extend far beyond specialty restaurants and niche health food stores. “I don’t know if I would’ve envisioned this for 2026,” he says. “You can go into pretty much any store and buy not just staples, but fun foods you wouldn’t have dreamed of even 10 years ago. We’re moving the needle.” Even outside of more alternative suppliers like Sprouts, Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, traditional box stores provide ample options. Take a scroll through Big Box Vegan and you’ll find everything from savory 7-Eleven finds to sweet Walmart steals.
Sterns’ own vegan journey began in the 1990s, after years of vegetarianism. At the time, he and his wife were living in London after their band signed with an English record label, and they were struck by how much further ahead the UK already seemed in terms of plant-based food. “When we first arrived, there were all these substitutes we’d never seen in America yet,” Sterns says. “We didn’t go vegan overnight—it was a transition that happened over five years or so.”
Long before Big Box Vegan, Sterns imagined another creative future for himself entirely. Beyond music, he once considered attending culinary school. “I started baking when I was 5 years old with my grandma and great aunt,” he says. Over the years, he’s become skilled at vegan baking—a notoriously difficult discipline because of the chemistry involved in replacing dairy and eggs—and now regularly shares original recipes alongside grocery finds on his platforms.
“Every creative avenue I’ve had has led me to something else,” he says. “I always thought music would be the beginning and end for me creatively, but that didn’t happen. I have so many outlets that satisfy that need in me. I go into them not knowing what I don’t know, and figure it out and try to get better and better. I think that’s a lesson for a lot of people. If you have a passion for something, try it and go forward, you never know where it can lead.”
Follow Sterns at bigboxvegan.com and @BigBoxVegan on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok
