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Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

bighospitality.co.uk

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Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#91

Post by gwbas1c »

strict9 wrote: post #16

After 15 years of not eating meat, the past 1-2 years have been a golden era of vegetarian options in the grocery store, restaurants, and fast food. Based on anecdotes and my social circles, the number of people completely avoiding meat hasn't changed. But omnivores adopting a semi-veg lifestyle has increased. If I had to pick one thing, I'd say environmental concerns are the main reason my omnivore friends and colle…

My stomach, ect, feel better when I eat less meat.

But: I rarely order vegan in a restaurant. I find it's much easier to do vegan at home. Why? Mostly food safety and storage. After cooking vegan for a few weeks, when I cooked meat, I realized just how much of a pain in the *$$ maintaining food safety is.

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#92

Post by cies »

strict9 wrote: post #16

After 15 years of not eating meat, the past 1-2 years have been a golden era of vegetarian options in the grocery store, restaurants, and fast food. Based on anecdotes and my social circles, the number of people completely avoiding meat hasn't changed. But omnivores adopting a semi-veg lifestyle has increased. If I had to pick one thing, I'd say environmental concerns are the main reason my omnivore friends and colle…

> the number of people completely avoiding meat hasn't changed.

We have numbers from actual research on that:

https://plantproteins.co/vegan-plant-based-diet-statistics/

https://animalcharityevaluators.org/blog/is-the-percentage-o...

So, yes it increases, and quite fast even.

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#93

Post by SomeOtherThrow »

arcticfox wrote: post #53
Iv wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me that's a mix of ethical and environmental concerns. I agree that there is a point in the belief that it is unethical to kill animals. That's not the most unethical thing that is happening in the world, there are a lot of things to argue about, but in general, I agree that in an ideal world, we should not do that. The environmental concerns, I only buy half-heartedly. I don't really believe that land-owners wil…

> The environmental concerns, I only buy half-heartedly. I don't really believe that land-owners will transform their pastures or soy cultures into rain forest instead of another profitable exploitation, I'd rather have states force responsible production and norms. If farmers switch to other exploitative crops, it should drive up the supply and down the price of those crops, reducing the drive to clear more rain for…

> If farmers switch to other exploitative crops, it should drive up the supply and down the price of those crops, reducing the drive to clear more rain forest.

I'd rather not gamble away the rainforest to optimism about humans acting rational. It's already irrational: humans will optimize towards short term gains.

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#94

Post by hanniabu »

strict9 wrote: post #16

After 15 years of not eating meat, the past 1-2 years have been a golden era of vegetarian options in the grocery store, restaurants, and fast food. Based on anecdotes and my social circles, the number of people completely avoiding meat hasn't changed. But omnivores adopting a semi-veg lifestyle has increased. If I had to pick one thing, I'd say environmental concerns are the main reason my omnivore friends and colle…

I'd wager a general healthy eating movement has a lot to do with it too. More people just want to eat healthier food without going full vegetarian.

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#95

Post by mytailorisrich »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #75
mytailorisrich wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, 'vegan food' is a dish that would normally contain animal products and has been contrived to remove them.

It’s interesting, under your definition whether something is vegan depends on who is making it. If your family just happens to make a 4-bean salad without meat, then for you that’s omnivorous. If I make the exact same salad, but my family growing up typically would have put bacon in it, then that same salad becomes “vegan food” because for me it’s a contrivance. It’s a relativistic definition of what’s vegan and what…

"Vegan" refers to people, not food. Food is only "suitable for vegans".

There are many, many traditional dishes that do not contain meat or even any animal products. I see no reason to suddenly label them "vegetarian" or "vegan".

But when people work hard to make a burger without any animal products then it does make some sense to call the result "vegan food" in that it was made specifically to suit vegan people.

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#96

Post by lostgame »

I've also rapidly seen the number of popular vegan restaurants explode in the city of Toronto, where I live, over the past 3-4 years.

One note a few people are making is that you don't have to be vegan to eat vegan. This is true, and purposeful - vegan food is generally of a relatively high quality - and a lot of what it offers is the direct contrast to most other North American-favoured food.

Like they say Lucky Charms are a 'part of a balanced breakfast', followed by a picture of a table with orange juice, a banana, etc...so it is that, if I have a busy work day, and we order some greasy pizza in, I can go hit he Freshii on my way out and balance out the sausage, grease, and cheese that way.

I think more and more people are simply realizing just how unhealthy our diet is, here in North America, and as these potions become more available, and awareness of them is increasing, I think all this indicates is expected are finally waking up from a sense of brainwashing that's gone on in advertising everywhere, getting us to honestly shove the worst things in our bodies over the past few decades.

There are environmental concerns with Vegan food, particularly in transit of the more obscure and in demand things like Avacados - so I do get a giggle when people are all uppity about how ethical they're being - but obviously there are ethical and environmental concerns with the treatment of animals, as well.

Overall, it's no surprise to see this data, I'd argue in-restaurant demand, at least in this city, has similarly exploded.

It's good. It means we are collectively eating a little better, and that's something that affects both the mind and the body.

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#97

Post by SomeOtherThrow »

schnevets wrote: post #69
strict9 wrote: post #16

After 15 years of not eating meat, the past 1-2 years have been a golden era of vegetarian options in the grocery store, restaurants, and fast food. Based on anecdotes and my social circles, the number of people completely avoiding meat hasn't changed. But omnivores adopting a semi-veg lifestyle has increased. If I had to pick one thing, I'd say environmental concerns are the main reason my omnivore friends and colle…

To me, it's less about new products and more about people's tastes. People are eating very different things now because of new popularity in some cuisines (Indian, Thai, and Mexican come to mind) and the popularity of "superfoods" (Avocado, Acai berry... ever notice there are never any animal-based superfoods?).

> ever notice there are never any animal-based superfoods?

This must be a marketing gimmick; eating animals is very nutritious—it's just not sufficient. However, this is the same as Avacado/acai berry/whatever.

I have heard milk referred to as a superfood quite a bit.

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#98

Post by freeone3000 »

glitchc wrote: post #70
wUabkSG6L5Bfa5 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nassim Taleb makes precisely this argument about the power of stubborn minorities. Which I think is 99% great. Though I think the medium term equilibrium is just that more establishments will need to do better than a half-ass salad for a vegan offering. Which is 100% great.

Stubborn minorities also lead to the "Tyranny of the Minority" and cause widespread anger among the silent majority of moderates who do not foist their preferences onto others. It leads to reduced freedoms all across society. https://areomagazine.com/2019/04/02/the-tyranny-of-the-minor... It's one of the root causes leading to the rise of populists like Trump. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/opinion/trump-electora…

Dude, it's restaurants offering better vegetarian options than the Sad Salad. It ain't that big a deal.

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#99

Post by Mikeb85 »

strict9 wrote: post #89
Mikeb85 wrote: post #68

As interesting as this is, it's just the takeaway sector. As someone in the higher-end restaurant sector, I certainly haven't seen increased demand for vegan options. It also doesn't help that many vegans are very price sensitive, not to mention have a disproportionate amount of other dietary restrictions.

Not sure what what city you're in, but even the high-end restaurant where I live (Alinea in Chicago, about $800-1200 for two people) gladly caters to vegan preferences. With the exception of steak houses (not fine dining IMO) there are always vegan options in my experience.

There's a difference to catering to vegan preferences (every high end restaurant does that) and actually selling a significant amount of vegan meals. Or being able to open a vegan restaurant at Alinea's price-point.

In my experience, vegan items sell fairly well, vegetable based items in general sell very well, but meals that are vegan from start to finish are less than 1% of clients. As in, serving 100 meals per day, we'll get one strict vegan per week.

Every high end restaurant is doing more vegetables; but guests still expect meat for the main course.

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