That’s it, we are now one month fully into 2017 and have now seen the end to one of the newest dining trends – Veganuary.
Veganuary is a relatively new kid on the block. An International initiative, 
Veganuary has been set up for people to adopt a vegan diet for the whole month with four main goals in mind:
- Better Nutrition
- Environmental Impact
- Animal Welfare
- Improved Health
Notwithstanding the increasing desire for people to adopt a clean eating lifestyle, there has been, for a while, a longer term goal of getting individuals to consume less meat, both for a health and weight perspective but also an environmental one.
Avoiding meat isn’t necessarily a new trend. The term Meat Free Monday represents another more long term International campaign, with its own set of hash tags, recipe books and heavy social media presence, all to get us eating less meat and more veggies. Even supermarkets are being redesigned to encourage people to buy more vegetables.
According to Free From Heaven, there has been a 360% increase in the number of people adopting a vegan diet in the last 10 years
So what does this mean for the food services industry?
With trends and a growing emphasis on clean eating and vegan diets, just like any other trend or customer demand, the food services industry needs to respond accordingly. The benefit of a growing vegan movement however is that by embracing a stronger demand for vegan products, it not only helps those who choose to cut out all animal products, including dairy, but it naturally embraces those with dairy and egg allergies. Therefore opening up your menu offerings for two groups of customers.
But how can just changing the menu help? Well, the Veganuary website has a list of restaurants and chains offering vegan choices that those participating can search to see where they can eat out and many included special offers for January. These venues are star rated for their vegan provision, so there is even more reason to improve the vegan offerings on your menu, especially if they include tasty deserts other than the standard sorbet and gluten free brownie.
