#myveganversion

[myveganversion]

Almost missed #NationalHoagieDay!! 😁 Here's #MyVeganVersion - #homemade #seitan, @followyourheart cheese slices. Inspired by the Seitan Bomb at Eat at Jumbo's. 📷 By the amazing @marinakatura

[myveganversion]

Red Hot Vegan Ventures

Thinking outside the kitchen...

The vegan community is growing by leaps and bounds!! As the specter of climate change looms larger, and people become more conscious of the need to take personal action to protect the planet, more and more folks are adopting a vegan diet. This has created a booming market, and numerous restaurants, food trucks and food production companies have sprung up to capitalize on the market.

For those who might be looking to build a business serving the vegan community, there’s a very important consideration that’s worth keeping in mind. For the majority of adherents, veganism is a LIFESTYLE, not merely a DIET. That means there are numerous needs beyond the kitchen (trademark), which a savvy entrepreneur can seek to meet. 

Vegans need vegan versions of clothing, make up, shoes and accessories, hair and skin care, and even events to attend. Recently, during a question and answer session, Elon Musk promised a questioner that he would try to provide an all vegan interior for the Tesla. This makes perfect sense, since many vegans would be attracted to low / no emissions vehicles like the Tesla.

In the past, vegans may have had to settle for substandard fabrics, unimaginative designs, and lackluster products. Not anymore! Check out this slideshow of 10 top vegan designers. They include Matt ‘n Nat (short for “Materials and Nature”) - designers of high quality and sophisticated handbags, wallets and the like, and Dalia MacPhee, designer of vegan Haute Couture.

At this point in our evolution, vegan restaurants are “so yesterday,” at least to a point. In fact, some notable plant-based restaurants, such as Native Foods, have begun down-sizing and closing locations. 

However, it’s not too late to capture the vegan market. For the adventurous entrepreneur, and even better, for the vegan entrepreneur, opportunities abound, and building a red hot vegan venture is very possible, especially for someone willing to think outside the kitchen.

[myveganversion]

Keep Authenticity on The Menu when serving the Vegan Community

Business is business, right? In order to be successful, identify a market, develop a product or service to fit, and get down to business. It turns out that business life may not be so straightforward when the market involved is the vegan community. 

For the most part, Veganism is a conscious choice, often based on moral values. As such, vegans prefer to support businesses which subscribe to their values, rather than just seek to capture the market.

Earlier this year, pandemonium erupted when it became known that Matthew and Terces Englehardt, owners of the popular vegan restaurant chain Cafe Gratitude, had reverted to eating meat, and were even raising and slaughtering cattle and selling the meat and by-products. Although the Englehardts maintain that they will continue to serve only 100% organic and vegan meals in their restaurants, the market still responded with outrage, ranging from calls for a boycott, to actual death threats.

In another notable incident, also earlier this year, when disgraced raw vegan celebrity restaurateur Sarma Melngailis was apprehended, an inordinate amount of attention was paid to the fact that she and her husband were caught because they ordered a Dominos Pizza to be delivered. Sacrilege!! 

Make no mistake, authenticity is appreciated and rewarded in other markets as well. Often the most successful businesses owe their winning ways to authenticity. Ethnic restaurants in particular - Italian, Indian, Ethiopian, Greek, etc., have a much easier time winning over potential customers if the owner / operators have an authentic connection to the culture or cuisine they represent. 

Increasingly, however, it is beginning to seem that in the case of a vegan oriented establishment, such authenticity isn’t merely desirable or advantageous, it may be downright necessary. Those seeking to serve the vegan community may need to serve up authenticity first, in order to succeed.

[myveganversion]

Got a lovely haul from this year’s SoCal VegFest!! Check out all my goodies :-)