7 minute read
Feature // Vegan
Mooving on
Plant-based meat analogues seem to have come out of nowhere, but they’re here to stay.
WORDS Madeline Woolway
THIS COUNTRY HAS a reputation: we’re a nation of meat-eaters. While the statement still holds true, the percentage is creeping in the opposite direction. According to data released by Roy Morgan in 2019, 2.5 million people in Australia have an all or almost all vegetarian diet. That’s 12.1 per cent of the population. Compared to 11.2 per cent in 2016 and 9.7 per cent in 2012, it’s a significant boost to the number of plant-eaters.
Unsurprisingly, plant-based dining is making its mark on all sectors of the industry from cafés to fine diners. Even quick-service restaurants and pubs are changing their tune. It’s a trend facilitated by demand and an increase in availability of meat analogues (think beeflike patties, faux chick’n nuggets and phish).
Hospitality talks to fast-casual vegan pioneers Lord of the Fries (LOTF) and leading pub group Australian Venue Co. (AVC) about their strategy for capitalising on the growing market.
Demand for plant-based meat analogues is soaring. After launching as a fries-focused food van in 2004, Melbourne brand Lord of the Fries has seen rapid growth in recent years. The company has expanded across Australia and into New Zealand, going from one store to 30 in 16 years.
On the burger front, Lord of the Fries has six variations and all but one is filled with a meat analogue. Venues saw an unmistakable rise in sales when their kitchens started rolling out Beyond Meat burgers in 2018. “We were the first with Beyond [in Australia] and we were told no one else sells more Beyond outside of America than us,” says co-founder Mark Koronczyk. “When we had exclusivity, there was a real spike in business.”
Lord of the Fries' Original burger
The brand is hoping for the same effect when it introduces the Impossible Foods burger — also an exclusive — this winter. “They’re two very different products,” says Koronczyk. “To offer them both in one place is really cool.”
A few years ago, it’s a position most chefs and business owners wouldn’t have dreamed of. For Christian Abbott, executive chef of the Middle Park Hotel in Melbourne, demand is no longer the main problem. The Albert Park venue was the first Australian Venue Co. kitchen to start serving Beyond Meat burgers and the decision is paying off.
“It’s been quite an even split against normal burgers,” says Abbott. “I was genuinely shocked because the Middle Park typically does steaks and hanging kebabs.”
Vegan options at Middle Park
Abbott’s main concern now is raising awareness. “It’s more of a case of education, not customer demand,” he says. “I need to educate clientele in how to make the planet more sustainable — that’s the biggest challenge for me. Obviously, we’ve got a base clientele who will come in for just [the plant-based burgers]. We want to try to engage with clientele who would normally order a [meat] burger.”
While the burgers are flying out the door in Melbourne, Abbott’s Sydney-based colleague Daniel Corbett has experienced a slower uptake. “They seem to be selling a lot more than Sydney at the moment,” Corbett says.
The new range of plant-based burgers at AVC’s Sydney venues The Winery, The Rook, Beer Deluxe, Beer Deluxe Terminal 2 and Manly Wine have still been a hit. “It’s definitely popular,” says Corbett, who is executive chef at the listed venues. “However, it is only maybe 5 per cent of our sales on a weekly basis.”
Although the meat analogues aren’t the company’s biggest seller in Sydney, Corbett sees the value in including them on the menu. Vegans might only make up a small percentage of sales themselves, but if one out of a group of 10 is plantbased, there needs to be an option for them. “If they can’t eat, the whole group will walk out the door,” says Corbett.
So why not just offer traditional vegetarian and vegan patties made of quinoa, beans or legumes? “People really want the same as everyone else, like a fast food burger,” says Corbett. “It’s for the people who are trying to be vegan or vegetarian.”
Demand fuels supply and the popularity of plant-based meat analogues is leading to better availability and new products. “The market is growing,” says Koronczyk. “We have more and more people in Australia pitching food to us. We used to have to source it ourselves from overseas.”
Of the pitches he receives, Koronczyk says it’s a 50/50 split between meat analogues and other vegan products. In fact, while they’re relatively new to the vegan market, meat analogues, especially beef imitations, have quickly become one of the easiest products to source.
Koronczyk and his co-founders, brother Sam Koronczyk and wife Mandy Walker Koronczyk, have been vegan for a long time, but when it came to switching the business to a completely vegan offering, cheese was the biggest hurdle. “Our cheese still comes from overseas,” he says. “No one we’ve spoken to can make an American slice that tastes great and is on price point.”
The AVC chefs came up against the same challenge. Abbott says burger buns proved difficult before they discovered Brasserie Bread’s vegan pumpkin bun.
For Corbett, the decision to go full vegan or settle for vegetarian also came down to accessibility and the cost of vegan alternatives for buns and cheese. “Some of our venues have [gone full vegan] and some have kept it as a veggie replacement,” he says, adding: “They’re definitely becoming a lot more readily available. As the months roll by, we’re getting more and more vegan options.”
Lord of the Fries' Parma burger
Even within the category of meat analogues, there have been significant leaps. Not only do imitations mimic the experience of eating a beef burger, other proteins are now easier to source.
The next step for AVC, says Corbett, is looking into chicken and fish alternatives. It’s a task Koronczyk is very familiar with. Ultimately, LOTF has decided to manufacture many products themselves. “It’s easier to make a beef patty,” he says. “There’s also quite a bit of competition around chicken. Companies that approach us say they are looking at what most people eat.”
It makes sense that a less-popular protein such as fish is harder to come by. “Fish is expensive,” says Koronczyk. “There’s no one in Australia doing it as far as I know, so it has to be imported. We’re making our own now; we were importing from Canada but the price was just prohibitive.”
There’s an anomaly, though: a locally produced bacon replacement has proven elusive. “Bacon is very hard to do,” says Koroncyzk. “We have to import that for the Parma burger.”
With so many alternatives available, deciding factors have become more important. “It comes down to a couple of things to be honest: taste and cost,” says Koronczyk. “It has to fit on our menu. And our prices are a lot better than if manufacturers come to us. We’ve got 30 stores, so we’re doing it on a large scale compared to everyone else.”
Manufactured plant-based meat analogues from suppliers such as Beyond Meat are still far more costly than meat. Corbett says vegan ingredients in general clock in at a much higher price than animal products. “It’s almost triple,” says Corbett. “So our wagyu burger patties from a very well-known supplier are about $1.85 and [Beyond burgers] are coming in at $4.90 a patty.”
It doesn’t mean venue operators have much leeway to charge more than meat offerings. “What we get most of the time is, ‘Why is your product so expensive?’” says Koronczyk. “If people knew our cost of goods compared to a chain like McDonald’s or Hungry Jacks, I think they’d be shocked.”
At Sydney’s AVC, venue margins are made up by charging a few dollars extra for plant-based meat burgers. So far, Corbett says diners have been on board with paying more, but the price difference doesn’t totally cover the discrepancy in cost. “If you’ve got the right product, people will pay,” he says. “But to be honest, we just take the hit on it because it brings customers in.”
In Melbourne, Abbott is still determined to keep the cost in line with meat. “What I’ve found recently is there are a lot of people going plant-based, gluten-free or whatever dietary and they’re being charged for it,” says Abbott. “They’re [suppliers] charging more and almost penalising people for having dietaries. We’re not doing that. We’re giving everyone an opportunity to get it and give it a try.”
With so much progress made when it comes to plant-based meat alternatives, the question now is what’s next?
Koronczyk thinks the next big debate will be labgrown meat — something he’s open to considering despite being a consummate vegan. Corbett thinks it’s only a matter of time until Australia catches up to the US — he’s expecting more plant-based fast food chains. For his part, Abbott believes that it’s up to the hospitality industry to lead people away from industrial animal agriculture even if it means sacrificing profits initially: “What’s margin when we’re not going to have a planet?” ■
