Majority of licensees not looking to have completely vegan menu, snap poll finds

23-Nov-2021 - Last updated on 23-Nov-2021 at 13:09 GMT

Poll results: 60% of publicans would not consider changing to an all vegan menu Credit: Getty/Klaus Vedfelt)

Related tags Food Vegan Plant-based Pub food

The results from a recent poll conducted by The Morning Advertiser (MA) has revealed 60% of operators would not consider switching to an all plant-based menu.

Following Daniel Humm's split from London hotel Claridge's, The MA asked for readers' thoughts on switching to an all vegan menu.

Of the 43 people who responded to the poll, 33% said this was something they would consider but a staggering 60% stated they would not consider an all plant-based menu and just 7% responded it would potentially be something to consider in the future.

The creation of plant-based dishes could incur higher labour costs, which could mean plant-based menus do not provide a cost-effective change for a lot of pubs.

Economically questionable

Karl Green, chef at the Unruly Pig, Suffolk said: “The bottom line for us is that vegan customers constitute to less than 0.6 % of our revenue so it would be at very best economically questionable for us to offer a fully plant-based menu.

“In truth it is not an easy task as the labour resource expended has, for us, never equated with proportionate revenue delivered, but with COP26 (UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties), and the need to reduce methane, the need to offer vegan options is unlikely to reduce.”

A survey conducted by the Vegan Society earlier this year showed one in four people had actively cut back on some form of animal products since the first coronavirus lockdown and a 2020 study, also by the Vegan Society, showed there was an estimated 600,000 vegans in the UK.

Pushing boundaries

Owner of the Spread Eagle in Homerton, Hackney, east London Luke Mcloughlin has offered a fully plant-based menu for the past four years and believed pubs should start to diversify vegan options to be more vegetable focused as opposed to meat substitute focused to encourage more creativity and better quality plant-based options as this "will push people's boundaries and people will experiment more with vegetables".

Mcloughlin said: “When we told people we were going vegan, initially, people thought it might have been a strange concept and we wouldn't get that many customers but we've been really busy for the last four years.

“There's a trend for meat substitute products, which we don't serve any of apart from the Beyond Burger, everything else is made in house, but I'm hoping plant-based menus will become much more vegetable focused, rather than looking at substitute meat products."