Article

Where’s the beets? Vegetarian options rare in QSR segment

Analysts say the demand for vegetarianism isn't high enough to warrant a spot on the competitive menu space.

May 3, 2011

By Steve Coomes

Vegetarianism is no passing trend. According to the Vegetarian Resource Group, 3 percent of U.S. adults never eat meat, poultry or seafood. Eight percent avoid red meat altogether.

This is up from a similar poll in 2006 in which 2.3 percent classified themselves as vegetarians, and 6.7 percent refrained from eating red meat.

If a growing number of Americans get their protein fixes from fields rather than barns, why are there so few vegetarian options on quick-service menus?

The answer is simple: Vegetarian dishes don't warrant a spot in the lineup. Not yet, anyway.

"There's not sufficient demand for it yet," said Dennis Lombardi, executive vice president of WD Partners, a restaurant consulting firm in Dublin, Ohio. He said you judge a menu item by:

• How frequently it's selling;
• How much of a motivator it is for people to consider the restaurant as a viable choice to visit; and
• The profitability of that item.

"In the context of fast food, vegetarian items don't justify their place on the menu," Lombardi said. "There's truly no room for such items when fast-food makelines are cordoned off in inches rather than feet. You have a very specifically designed kitchen made to produce a specific menu efficiently, so there's not a lot of flexibility for producing other things when you don't have extra space."

The kitchen area becomes even more precious each time a new burger or chicken sandwich tests positive in focus groups, said Eric Giandelone, director of foodservice research for Mintel in Chicago.

"Taking up space for a vegetarian item that will sell to a limited population when you know something else will sell better isn't what restaurants do," he said. "If it's there because someone says it has to be doesn't make sense if the space could be better utilized by something that sells well."

Another reason meatless options are scarce on QSR menus in the U.S. is because vegetarians don't fit the segment's core demographic, which is males ages 18-29. According to Vegetarian Times, 59 percent of U.S. vegetarians are female, and 58 percent are at least 35 years old.

Requests for interviews with several QSR chains, including McDonald's, Wendy's and Subway, were not acknowledged. Subway typically declines interviews when field tests are underway, so it's not unexpected that the company didn't respond about its falafel sub rolled out recently in the Chicago area. Still, the product has generated a good deal of buzz and even has its own official Facebook and Twitter pages.

Meatless options few and far between

A few other U.S. chains have embraced the vegetarian crowd, including Burger King, which was the first to offer such an item, originally launching the BK Veggie in 2002. The item is still available in participating restaurants nationwide.

On a smaller level, EVOS and Burgerville are both veggie heavy. Burgerville brought back the LTO Yukon & White Bean Basil Burger last year due to popular demand. The burger is one of many featured on the chain's vegetarian burger line, along with the Oregon Harvest Burger and the Spicy Anasazi Black Bean Burger.

More recently, Gold Star Chili rolled out a vegetarian variation of its Cincinnati-style 3-way chili, as well as a veggie chili burrito, veggie chili burrito bowl and a veggie chili salad. The chain's adoption of these items came about from increasing demand.

"More and more consumers are demanding flavorful, but meatless menu options," said Charlie Howard, Gold Star vice president of marketing.

Finding a "flexitarian" compromise

Still, these options, particularly at burger-centric chains, are few and far between in the U.S.

Giandelone said Mintel's research shows no strong surge toward vegetarianism, but that more Americans are calling themselves "flexitarians:" people who like the idea of vegetarianism enough to work on shifting their diets toward more plant-based foods. Such customers provide restaurateurs an opportunity if they can create dishes that don't add stock-keeping units to the inventory or consume unnecessary space on the makeline.

"These are people who would like things like Meatless Mondays at restaurants because they're trying to cut back," he said. "The opportunity isn't in making totally vegetarian dishes, but looking at opportunities to change out an ingredient, like a hamburger patty for a Portobello mushroom."

Giandelone's research shows many flexitarians aren't necessarily soon-to-be or even wannabe vegetarians, either. Rather, their choice to eat less meat is more for health and wellness reasons, which keeps them in the game for the marketing of core menu items.

"What's going to be key is whether customers embrace vegetarian items when they dine out, because when you get into a restaurant and you smell sizzling meat, it changes things," Giandelone said. "The challenge is to make the meat-free items as appetizing as the core menu items. That can be done, of course, but will people buy those items?"

Those very things are done regularly at fast casual, casual and fine dining restaurants. In addition to multiple meatless salad and appetizer options, these segments often have the space to carry the extra SKUs that allow for menu flexibility.

Still, their sales of truly vegetarian items just aren't moving the needle enough to make sense for restaurants that aren't dedicated meat-free zones, Lombardi said. In the end, it all comes down to whether an item makes money.

"That's menu rationalization: managing what items go on a menu and what items come off a menu based on their performance," he said. "I'm sure these companies have nothing against serving vegetarian food other than the fact it's not ordered frequently enough to maintain a space on the menu."

Alicia Kelso contributed to this story.