Blog

Vegan Hospitality Webinar: Inspiring Menu Change

The Plant Based Treaty recently presented an exciting webinar titled: How to Inspire Change in Hospitality: Advocacy Training for Plant Based Treaty Campaigners. Led by Meredith Marin, CEO of Vegan Hospitality, this informative discussion has tips that can be used by anyone wanting to help implement more vegan options within hospitality. Marin used her background as a social worker and passion for veganism to turn Aruba into a vegan-friendly island in the Caribbean, where she currently lives. Whether you are campaigning for the Plant Based Treaty or choose to make a difference on your own at local cafés, restaurants, and hotels in your community, this valuable webinar has helpful strategies – some key takeaways are below.

Please consider funding us to support future Plant Based Treaty webinars.

This webinar with Meredith Marin, CEO of Vegan Hospitality, will give the tools to implement more vegan options and menus within hospitality. (Webinar time: 101mins)

The Importance Of Customer Advocacy

As customers and advocates we have the power to create positive change. Marin explains this includes informing restaurants there is a demand for plant-based options. Don’t assume if you order a pizza without cheese, that managers, owners, and chefs know it’s because you are vegan. She stresses the importance of communicating the demand for vegan food whenever possible. Marin says it’s important to educate employees at establishments on what it means to have plant-based ingredients and live a vegan lifestyle. We can become educators and “change agents” by teaching others about delicious and healthy vegan foods that go beyond a plate of grilled veggies. When we advocate for vegan food options in restaurants it helps inspire the decision makers that have the power to change things. This can take the form of sharing sustainability information, climate change, and the rights of animals.

Tips:

•  Call or email restaurants in advance to start building a relationship. If the person on the phone is unsure, ask to speak with the Chef or have them call you back. It’s a great opportunity to chat about vegan protein ideas and set restaurants up for success!
• After your delicious meal follow up with the Chef and even share photos of the food on social media.
• Always focus on the potential and if for some reason you don’t love the meal, offer suggestions on how to improve it – show gratitude for the extra effort and offer supportive and encouraging ideas to cheer them on!
• The power of a positive online review encourages others to try it
• By letting the restaurant know there is a demand for vegan food you are helping educate people in the food service industry

Mission, Vision, and Values

If your mission is to raise the demand for vegan options in your community, then being clear on how you want to change this is imperative and a clear vision starts the conversation.

“For me, my mission has always been to make the vegan lifestyle both acceptable and accessible in Aruba. Acceptable meaning I’m going to make it cool to be vegan. I’m going to make sure that people don’t roll their eyes at me in the supermarket when I ask where the tofu is. And accessible meaning that people can access it so anyone that wants to go vegan can, and they don’t feel like there are barriers in place where it’s too hard for them to do that it’s too hard to get a good meal.” – Meredith Marin

Once you start talking about your vegan vision you can share ideas on social media and ask the press and local newspapers to help spread the word.

She explains; “Have a unique vision and be willing to fight for it and bring something positive to your community. I encourage you to look around to see who’s willing to listen to you.”

If your mission is to promote the Plant Based Treaty and spread the message of shifting towards a plant-based food system, you will be bringing something positive to your community so we can all live safely within our planetary boundaries. A key vision of the treaty in addition to promoting a plant-based food system, “is for cities and institutions to implement best practices in plant-based food policies and rewilding.”

Help bring this vision to fulfilment by encouraging restaurants, hotels, and institutions to offer vegan options. Marin explains there are many social justice reasons to promote plant-based options, such as a world of non-violence for all beings and climate change. Choosing what resonates most for you will have the most meaning and possibly the most success.

Regardless of where you live, speaking up about how restaurants can incorporate more vegan options into the menu is a great way to create positive change. It’s also the perfect opportunity to ask them to endorse the plant-based treaty as a business.

Vision Logistics And Procedures

• See what you can do at a local level by researching what restaurants and cafés have the power to do: phone calls and emails are a great starting point
• When going in person, set the situation up for success and approach restaurants at a good time: don’t go to busy cafés at 8 am when everyone is getting their morning coffee as they are not going to have time to talk to you; same goes for the dinner rush at 5 pm, and the staff is rushed
• If you are approaching a ‘steakhouse’, be prepared for that conversation to be harder than approaching a restaurant that already has a lot of vegetarian options
• Make sure you are speaking to the decision-makers, and if they are not there, leave your contact information
• If approaching chain cafés and restaurants, find out what it is that they have the power to change and who to contact at a higher level; Marin can be a resource for this, as she is currently in talks with global chains to help them make plant-forward pledges

Motivational Interviewing

Motivational interviewing is a way to ask questions to help people find their own motivation to make a change.

“We need people to find their own motivation to make a change whether it’s a change in their own life or in their business. We’re not going to come in and tell them to change, they have to want that for themselves.” – Meredith Marin

Marin says she has seen restaurants go from one vegan guest per week to ten vegan guests per day. Since vegan guests aren’t usually dining alone, this can lead to twenty new guests per day for restaurants. Share this information to get them on board and excited about adding new vegan options to menus. Furthermore, if the average cost of a meal is $25 dollars and you multiply that by twenty people per day, that’s going to be more money and repeat business for them.

Another angle is sharing sustainability data and the Safe and Just report is an excellent resource to help spark useful conversations leading to productive outcomes.

Marin suggests the following principles for motivational interviewing:

• • • • Ask open-ended questions
      • Make affirmations
      • Use reflections
      • Use summarizing

 For specific details on these four principles and comprehensive examples, check out the webinar.

In addition to funding webinars like this one, the Plant Based Treaty works hard on campaign trails, research, education, street activism, ads, publicity, and lobbying. Please consider funding us to support future Plant Based Treaty projects.

More from the blog