Adding more meat-free or plant-based dishes can have a range of business benefits, including increased sales, cost savings and better margins, and increased creativity in the kitchen.
Whilst some pub and restaurant operators may feel that rebalancing their main menu heavily in favour of plant-based dishes doesn’t work for their local customer demographics and is a diversion from their venue’s reputation, there is certainly an opportunity for more meat-free options at every establishment. You could even start by focusing on just one day a week to garner interest. For example, at steak and seafood restaurant The Coal Shed in Brighton, they run successful ‘Meat Free Mondays’ in January.
It’s 15 years since the Meat Free Mondays campaign was launched by Paul, Stella and Mary McCartney, with a range of independent and chain restaurants successfully involved including Itsu and The Pond, which runs a 50% vegan menu through the week too. Brewer, bar and hotel operator BrewDog runs Plant-Based Mondays at its venues with two-for-one deals on all veggie and vegan mains every Monday, and 50% of its menus are plant-based.
Why not offer a ‘Veg of The Week’ or ‘Celebration of Veg’ daily special, or perhaps trial Meat Free Mondays or a ‘From the Garden’ tasting menu or special dinner during this year’s Love British Food Fortnight (20th September-6th October)? This is also a great way to get customer feedback and sales insights on seasonal veg-rich dishes, with the possibility of adding them to the main menu.
Another way of pub and restaurant operators adding more vegetables to menus and reducing their carbon footprint is to establish their own kitchen garden. With their 25-mile home-grown and locally sourced menus, The PIG Hotel Group has made this a USP, a wonderful hook around which to build their brand.
While it obviously isn’t practical or cost-effective for all operators to establish and/or maintain a kitchen garden, there are ways of embracing this concept on a smaller scale. You could help to set up a community garden run by local volunteers that grows produce for your venue, or invite local gardeners and allotment holders to sell or donate surplus produce to your kitchen. Honesty market stalls, garden workshops and seed swap events are all related activities that can also add value to your venues’ offer around this.
For hospitality operators that are increasingly trying to be more sustainable with produce sourced for their menus, but who wish to continue to include meat dishes to meet the needs of their customer base, ‘mindful meat’ is one way to balance this. This means a focus on sourcing ‘better’ meat options in terms of sustainability through procurement policies and the agricultural practices you support through your sourcing.
