Cater to the broadest customer base by offering an inclusive menu

Not only are more and more Australians being medically diagnosed with food intolerances than ever before, a growing number of consumers are also choosing to modify their diets – for example by avoiding gluten or reducing their meat intake by choosing plant-based in place of animal proteins. 

In recognition of this, smart foodservice professionals are rapidly adopting what’s become known as an inclusive menu – that is, ensuring they’re offering options which meet a wide range of dietary preferences.  

This has become increasingly important in recent years, not only to expand your potential customer base but also to ensure you don’t miss out on orders. Suppose, for example, there’s a party of ten seeking to eat at your establishment and only one of them wants a gluten free or plant-based meal. If you don’t have those options on the menu, you’ll miss out on the entire booking. Multiply that over the course of a week, a month and a year, and you can see you’re missing an awful lot of potential business.

Adding more plant-based and gluten free options

At The Ary Toukley on the NSW Central Coast, incoming head chef Jason Stuart has recently overhauled the menu and part of that has included adding more plant-based and gluten free options. “Everyone’s aware of how popular these preferences are these days, so what we’re trying to do is make our meals as versatile as possible, so the vast majority of customers can order them without us having to make any ingredient substitutions,” Jason explains.

One of the first changes he made when coming onboard was to change to a gluten free hot chip – Edgell Delivery Chips – which are served with a wide range of dishes. “That opens up the steak section, and anything served with chips and salad, so that people who want a gluten free meal don’t have to substitute chips with mashed potato and feel they’re missing out.” 

Another major change was to move all the sauces for the club’s burgers, its Caesar dressing and all its mayonnaise-based sauces to a base of Birch & Waite Vegan Mayonnaise. “That then enables us to offer a ‘vegan swap’ section for our burger menu – so customers can choose a vegan bun, vegan pattie, vegan cheese and all our sauces are now vegan as standard, so they can choose any combo they want, and all the accompaniments will work. It just opens up the menu to a broader range of customers.

“While it’s quite a bit change for us, the regular punter can’t tell the difference, and that’s very important – they don’t know that the sauces, for example, are vegan. It’s about being subtle with the change – we were concerned that if you brand the sauces as vegan, the older regulars might think ‘I’m not eating that’, but if you don’t tell them it’s not a big deal, in fact they don’t even notice.” 

“This way, if someone comes in who is lactose intolerant, or has other dietary preferences, typically those vegan options will cater for them so it's not such a strain in the middle of service to look for options which can suit. Our falafel salad, for example, is completely vegan, which means it’s dairy and meat free, and it’s also nut free. We make the falafels inhouse and serve them with hommus, tabouli and pickled cabbage so it’s really fresh and full of flavour. What we find is that non-vegan customers love it just as much as vegans!

“I’ve tried to keep an option in each section of the menu for these kinds of preferences because there’s such a big demand these days. When I was a young chef we'd get a vegan maybe once a week – these days it’s every second or third customer!”

Catering to dietary preferences is essential

“Dietary preferences are just a fact of life and an essential part of dining out these days,” says chef Peter Wright. “The statistics show that back in the year 2000, it was six per cent of the Australian population who had a specific dietary preference – by 2019 it was up to 29 per cent. Customers choose what they want to eat and when they’re paying money to your establishment, you need to be able to cater to them.”

Plant-based food in particular has been building momentum over the past two years. “It’s probably less than one per cent of the population who are dedicated plant-based eaters,” Peter points out, “but a much larger proportion of people are willing to try new things and choose an occasional plant-based meal in preference to animal protein.

“They’re more environmentally conscious, more focused on sustainability, and they know that beef is a second crop protein which adds a lot of methane to the atmosphere, whereas a first crop protein is a better environmental choice. The 20-25 year olds in particular are far more conscious of these issues than the previous generations, those people are going to be your core customers for the next 25 years – and being able to impress the new generation is very important.”

With the widespread availability of readymade gluten free products including sauces, toppings, spreads, pastas and breads, many businesses have been able to make the whole menu gluten free. “We are a nation that loves our bakery products, and the artisan bread industry is huge – but there’s so many gluten free choices around now that complement your sourdoughs and ciabattas and brioches.

“Almost every burger bar nowadays has a gluten free bun and pattie option and the base sauce is typically thickened with corn flour as opposed to wheat. Almost every pizza shop now offers a gluten free base option, there are gluten free pastas at Italian restaurants – the percentage of dishes on the menu which are gluten free is getting higher and higher, and that makes life easier for the chefs.

“Thanks to the quality of the gluten free products available from the big manufacturers, you really can’t tell the difference. Often they’re actually a superior product in taste and value for money and you can serve them across the menu to all customers, because they tend to be allergen free as well as gluten free.

“It’s taken a while to get to this point – there has been a significant investment by companies to make it happen – but the market research five years ago said this was the road we needed to go down, and it’s been proved right. And what’s being produced today is more innovative and leading the way.”

Changing our way of thinking

Chef Adam Moore says, “It’s interesting how we’ve all changed our way of thinking about this over the years. It used to be, ‘I’ve got to cater for vegetarian, vegan, gluten free’ – now what a lot of chefs are trying to do is make a meal that caters for the widest possible customer base. Chefs typically haven’t been taught a lot about allergens and intolerances – yes, there are some great resources available from major suppliers, but some chefs still don’t realise that soy sauce may not be an allergen itself but it usually does contain wheat, which in turn contains gluten. So now the focus is on making the allergen and intolerance free option also the gluten free option and also the vegetarian, vegan and plant-based option – all in one. I know people who have one specific allergy but when they fly on an airline they’ll order the vegan meal because they know that’s the one where all their allergens are likely to be covered off.”

Adam emphasises that for many customers, health considerations are not at the heart of their dietary decision making. “It’s more about what’s trending, that’s the mentality and chefs are trying to cater to that. And while I do think the ‘one size fits all’ is a smart approach, we also need more training on allergens for chefs. When you look at the typical approach, you might be cooking a gluten free schnitzel, but once you’ve put in the same deep fryer you’re using to cook all the regular breaded and crumbed products you’ve cross-contaminated it with gluten. And given that the number of people diagnosed with allergens is continually increasing, chefs need to be more mindful of what they’re serving.

“Broadly speaking, that also applies to dietary preferences. Something which is vegetarian isn’t necessarily vegan friendly as well. Something which is lactose free may still contain nuts. And there are new kinds of food allergens becoming more prevalent – celery is a major one which is growing. Soy allergy is becoming more commonplace and lupin is starting to become well known. I’ve heard of people who have meat protein allergy, and a plant-based diet is probably their best option in terms of a nutritious alternative. Thankfully we do have many more options available to us as chefs today.”

Reflecting diversity in the menu

Gary Johnson, Group Executive Chef at ALH Hotel Group, echoes Adam’s words above when he says, “For us the construction of the menu has to reflect where we are with dietary preferences and that’s as diverse as our population. We talk about having pubs for every generation and we also reflect that diversity in the menu, but we don’t separate it into specific sections so all the vegetarian meals or gluten free meals are grouped together. Rather we spread them throughout the menu because we know they have broader appeal than that. Of course we do put coding throughout to help people choose meals which fit their dietary preferences, and also within our coastal and holiday destination venues we have what we call our ‘clean and green’ section – which isn’t necessarily vegan or gluten free, it might also be low fat, low sodium, low sugar or no sugar. But that’s really our only call-out section on the menu, the rest of our dietary preferences are interspersed throughout.

“What we find is that customers will mix and match – they might choose a superfood Buddha bowl which is entirely vegan, but then they’ll order a piece of grilled salmon to top it. I think what people are looking for is those clean protein options – they actually have broad appeal, not just to that one per cent of the vegan population.

“I think we all need to have an eye on appealing to the flexitarians, who tend to be in the 20 to 35 age group and are a lot more conscious about reducing their red meat consumption if not the amount of animal protein in their diet generally. We don’t see as many sales now of 500g steaks as we do of 250g, and that’s not being driven by price, rather by dietary considerations. It’s all about broader choice and making sure that choice is available.”

An allergen matrix is typically employed in the kitchens at ALH’s venues – listing all the menu dishes and the allergens they contain on a chart accessible to the FOH serving staff. As Gary explains, “if a customer is looking through the menu and not quite sure what they can have, our staff can refer to the chart. I think that’s very important nowadays, because there’s a lot more people out there with either allergies, intolerances or simply preferences and we have to deliver not just on the customer’s expectations but also with regard to their safety and health.

Gary acknowledges that the quality of readymade gluten free or plant-based protein ingredients has got better and better over time and this has made life much easier for chefs. “Five years ago gluten free bread typically tasted dry and biscuity, but now there are some terrific product son the market. We can now prepare vegan meals where you can’t tell the difference between plant-based proteins and animal protein.

“There are also some very simple solutions for some of these dietary preferences you can make yourself from scratch. For example we make a fantastic vegan aioli by blending silken tofu with a little mustard, apple cider vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper. I guarantee that when you taste it you’d never guess it’s dairy and egg free, it just tastes great!”

Suppliers rise to the challenge of diversifying the menu

In recent years major suppliers like Nestlé Professional and Unilever Food Solutions have devoted considerable effort to expanding their product range to meet the needs of today’s inclusive menu, with a particular focus on plant-based and gluten free options.

“I think it’s become a necessity today have these items on your menu, and it’s just financial common sense to cater to everyone because you can’t afford to lose customers,” says Nestlé Professional Executive Chef Mark Clayton. “When I first entered the industry there wasn’t much thought given to vegetarians – they were just offered a plate of salad, whereas now every hotel and restaurant has a range of vegetarian options on the menu. I think what the industry has discovered is that their clientele includes people who might not be vegans, but they’ve adopted this trend of cutting down on their animal protein intake, and that’s the growth area for plant-based food.

“We’ve brought in a whole host of plant-based products under the Harvest Gourmet brand, the latest of which is Sensational Ground Mince which launched in January, and these products are animal-protein free but you can cook with them just as you would with meat. You can use this mince to make meatballs, Bologenese sauce, whatever you want – it’s not just for the vegan market but for anyone who wants an animal-protein free meal. The flexitarian meal choice is typically driven by health concerns, so we’ve responded with products which have a health benefit in terms of saturated fat content – if you compare our plant-based burgers with a beef burger, for example, there’s a significant difference in saturated fat.”

The other major focus is gluten free, which Mark says has come a long way in recent years. “Once upon a time if you had gluten free pasta you could taste the difference, but these days you’d be hard pressed to tell. The aim is to be able to use a gluten free product for all applications and have it still deliver the goods in taste, texture and presentation. You don’t want to have to carry too any products, and you certainly don’t want to offer your gluten free customers a second rate meal.”

The evolution of plant-based proteins

Simplot Australia Executive Chef David White takes a similar line, adding the quality of plant-based protein ingredients has evolved over the past few years to the point that the focus has shifted from comparing plant-based proteins to animal proteins and instead to comparing one brand of plant-based proteins with another, to see how the quality stacks up. “We’re finding that the cues are wanting the texture to be right, not wanting there to be anything unfamiliar or alien about the product. The aim is for the consumer not necessarily to notice that they aren’t eating meat and not to be bothered one way or the other – in effect the food is judged simply on whether or not it’s a good, satisyfing meal.”

““As fast as the market’s been moving, it still has a long way to go,” David points out. “For most people plant-based is still new, but foodservice professionals have at least heard about it and they’re recognising they need to get it on the menu because consumers are asking for it.

“What we find when we talk to our potential end-users is that even though they’re looking to range it, the depth of knowledge is still not there to be able to identify a good product from a not so good one.

“We know we’ve got a good one in our 100% Not brand of plant-based protein ingredients, so we’re trying to use testimonials and sensory data to educate the market, let our end-users see what people are saying about these products where they’re currently being sold. Mad Mex and Roll’d currently have our 100% Not on the menu – Mad Mex are using it in their vegan chicken burrito and Roll’d in a vegan beef rice paper roll.”