Plant-based foods shine on the menu as consumers seek out healthier choices

Plant-based foods are rapidly becoming a must-have on foodservice menus – as more and more Aussie consumers embrace healthier dining choices and look to cut down on their meat intake. 

“There’s been a steady build in demand,” reports Cameron Prowse, Business Development Manager at the Alternative Meat Co, whose Alternative Meat Burger is making strong inroads into the market. “Consumers are choosing to cut down on their meat intake because they know they can do so without compromising their dining experience – and that’s because the quality of many of today’s plant-based menu solutions deliver the texture, taste and satiety that they expect.”

At busy Bar Luca on Sydney’s Phillip Street, Head Chef and co-owner Sarah Robbins says adding the Alternative Meat Burger to the menu resulted in a big jump in sales. “It’s maintained at those levels since, which has been great,” she adds. “Our plant-based patties are making up about 15 per cent of our total burger sales and have definitely attracted a big following.”

Sarah adds that while plant-based products like this make it easier to cater to vegetarians and vegans, such is their taste profile and presentation that they can be used across the board. “We have some people who come in and order our vegie burger but add bacon or a piece of fried chicken to it – and we also have customers who are full-on vegans for whom it’s important we can offer an option. We typically use milk buns for our burgers, but we’ve found a vegan bun which is made with coconut milk instead of cow’s milk, so we have that offering as well. If customers want a fully fledged vegan meal it has to be dairy free, so they love pairing our coconut milk bun with the Alternative Meat Burger. Others are just looking to cut down on their meat intake. We’ve even had people try the burger who’ve said, ‘this isn’t plant-based, the texture is too much like meat’, or ‘it’s bleeding like meat, are sure you haven’t given me the wrong burger?’”

The bleed has been achieved by using a combination of plant-based colours like beetroot with plant-based fats and oils: “the way all the ingredients have been combined allows us to mimic animal meat,” Cameron Prowse explains. “The older vegetarian pattie products tended to be glutinous and breadlike, but this new generation really delivers on texture, mouthfeel and performance.”

“You can’t even taste any difference”

As Corporate Executive Chef for Delaware North Australia, Markus Werner oversees new trends and concepts in the corporate catering market, and was recently involved in trialling a range of plant-based products. “All the executive chefs from our larger venues came together and we had a tasting session where we tried plant-based burger patties, sausages, ‘chicken’ and so on,” Markus tells us.

“My take on it was that there are some sensational products out there, and some of them you can’t even taste any difference, or in fact they taste even better than lower quality meat. So I think we will see a lot more plant-based proteins on the menus, but the ones that will cut through will be the ones which are actually healthier choices.

There are some products which had long lists of additives and I thought, ‘if I can’t understand the ingredients, like the colour or flavour additives, then I’m not interested’ and we rejected those – because you don’t want to implement something and then find in five years’ time that it’s worse for your health than eating a piece of steak. Some plant-based products have high amounts of sugar or salt or use different types of fat. We eventually settled on a brand which is all-natural and still delivers  great flavour.”

Markus adds that when utilising these kinds of products on the menu, it’s important to make sure your meals still deliver on both presentation and flavour. “The days when vegetarian or vegan meant less thought and creativity than other dishes are long gone,” he affirms. “The point is that your vegan or vegetarian dishes need to look and taste amazing and people will want to try them because of that, not because of dietary requirements. The customer wants to choose those dishes that appeal to them – it’s no longer the case that you have a frozen meal in the back of the fridge and you pull it out when someone orders vegan. Thank God, those days are over!”

He tells us that in the UK Delaware North opened a food outlet called Dirty Deeds in Wembley Stadium which was totally vegan but not branded as such. “We didn’t even tell people – the burger pattie was made out of beetroot and corn, the whole menu was vegan but the point was that customers were enjoying the meals they ordered and then realised afterwards it was a meat-free dish. In other words, enjoy it first. When you tell people that they’ve just eaten a vegan burger, they’ll tell you how much they enjoyed it – but that wasn’t why they ordered it.

“The trend now is towards smaller serves of meat in any case. For a long time we created mains based on the concept of a protein with sides, but in the future I think it will become sides with protein, which is not necessarily a bad thing.”