Restaurant Menu Design can Help Save the Planet

Huge numbers of people say they want to eat more meatless meals. When they go to restaurants, though, their willpower drops and they may order meat. By changing their menu designs, restaurants can help customers eat less meat, live healthier and be more sustainable.

More People want to Go Meatless

Even though less than 10 percent of people in most countries are vegetarians or vegans, many more want to eat less meat. About 7 percent of the population in Singapore says they are vegetarian or vegan, for example, and a lower 5 percent in the US says the same thing. More than one-third of consumers in Singapore say they are trying to reduce their meat consumption, though, and about 60 percent of Americans say they go vegetarian “sometimes”.

It is fairly easy to eat less meat at home, simply by cooking meatless meals. When people go out to a restaurant, though, different instincts kick in. One challenge, researchers noted, is that menu labeling that says “vegetarian” or “meat-free” can lead diners to think the food won’t taste good. And even though plant-based meals improve health and the environment, those benefits seem far away compared to the immediate personal satisfaction of eating meat.

It turns out that nudging people to choose vegetarian dishes at restaurants is easier than it might seem. Simple changes to menus or the number of vegetarian options can lead lots more customers to choose vegetarian dishes. And doing so has a multitude of benefits.

Restaurants that want to become more sustainable can do so more easily. It turns out that even though 70 percent of restaurants in the US say improving sustainability is a priority, less than 40 percent actually run sustainable operations. By getting customers to choose vegetarian options and using less meat, restaurants can become more sustainable.

Customers benefit, too, from reducing carbon emissions and from a healthier lifestyle. Plant-based diets can reduce people’s obesity, diabetes, blood pressure, cholesterol levels and heart disease, according to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Menu Changes are Straightforward

While it might seem like making changes to the menu design to nudge people towards vegetarian meals would be difficult, research shows that small changes can make a big difference.

One is for restaurants to make the description of vegetarian food sound more delicious or to highlight the vegetarian choices as chef’s recommendations. To understand the impact of these small changes, researchers from the London School of Economics compared giving survey participants options of a vegetarian dish presented as a chef’s recommendation, or making descriptions of vegetarian dishes more appealing, or placing vegetarian dishes in a separate section of the menu. They found that simply adding a chef’s recommendation or a descriptive menu increased the likelihood of people who mostly eat meat choosing vegetarian dishes instead.

Another option is to give customers a vegetarian default rather than a meat default, a deceptively simple solution that increased vegetarian meal orders by people who weren’t even trying to reduce their meat consumption by a whopping 513 percent. Researchers gave diners in restaurants in Denmark and the Netherlands clever choices of a meat default: “Classic Burger – Beef burger with fries and salad €14.50” with a separate box stating “Would you rather have a Black Bean Burger? – Ask the waiter” or a vegetarian default - “Vegetarian Black Bean Burger – Black bean burger with fries and salad €14.50” with a separate box stating “Would you rather have a Classic Burger? – Ask the waiter”. They found that a vegetarian default significantly increased the number of people who chose vegetarian food, especially among people who were not even trying to eat less meat.

Increasing the number of vegetarian options in casual settings in cafeterias and canteens can be surprisingly effective too. One team of researchers at the University of Oxford found that doubling the proportion of vegetarian meals offered in canteens increased vegetarian sales by up to 79 percent. Very importantly for the canteens, serving more vegetarian food had little impact on overall sales. A separate study at Oxford on cafeterias similarly found that changing from a majority of menu choices having meat to two or three options out of four being meat-free decreased sales of meat options by 19 percent. They found the same result regardless of gender or socioeconomic status. “Increasing the availability of meat-free options is effective at reducing meat selection,” the researchers concluded.

Finally, a small message can make a big difference in nudging people towards eating vegetarian meals. The World Resources Institute (WRI) tested 10 different messages in the US relating to sustainability, ranging from taste or environmental impact to health or generosity. People who saw sustainability messages on their menu were more likely to select lower-carbon vegetarian meals, and two messages - “small changes, big impact” and “joining a movement” - nearly doubled the percentage of vegetarian dishes people ordered. Moreover, the people who ordered vegetarian once were more likely to order a vegetarian dish the next time they ate out.

What restaurants do not want to do, experts said, is to label food in ways that make it less appealing. Emphasising the healthiness of a food or clearly calling it vegetarian in particular can make people think it will not taste as good as meat.

Menus Matter

Many restaurants simply create menus the way they always have, thinking the labels for vegetarian food make little difference. It’s clear, though, that menus truly matter. By tweaking the menu just a little, restaurants can achieve their goal of becoming more environmentally sustainable and still maintain their sales. They may even attract more customers, since more than half of consumers in some countries say restaurant sustainability practices “somewhat influence” their choices when dining away from home. And customers will go away healthier and having done their bit for the planet too.

By Richard Hartung

Richard is currently the Treasurer of Centre for a Responsible Future. He has more than 20 years of experience in consumer financial services and is also a freelance writer for newspapers, magazines and corporates, with a deep interest in sustainability and plant-based diets.