Opinion: Simone Groeschl on vegan options inflight
The number of vegans has grown by 360% in the last decade in the UK alone, with around a third of the population now reducing meat consumption for health, animal welfare and the environment. These ‘reducetarians’ are helping to drive demand for plant-based meals not just onland but in the air, too.
Our first ever survey ranking of the vegfriendliness of the world’s 50 largest airlines evaluated the number of suitable options onboard (standard and special meals as well as among the snacks offered); customer friendliness (in terms of the availability of online information about veggie options and the ease of ordering veggie); as well as onboard retailing. It also assessed airlines’ future plans.
We only considered Economy and did not evaluate quality. Inevitably not all airlines responded but of those which did the results were as follows.
Top was Scandinavian Airlines which works with chefs who specialise in plant-based food. It offers vegan and vegetarian options among standard snacks on every flight and has added new vegan dishes, and reduced meat portion sizes while at the same time increasing plant-based ingredients within its dishes. In the future the airline plans to offer more milk alternatives and vegan options too.
Swiss International Airlines also did well, working with Haus Hiltl in Zurich, the oldest vegetarian restaurant in the world, for inspiration ex-Zurich. Vegetarian meals are available by default on every flight and several new vegan meals and snacks have been introduced to the offer in the past year.
Alitalia was also good, offering vegan and vegetarian options among its standard meals onboard on specific flights/destinations. Free vegetarian snacks are available as a standard.
Air India should be recognised for only offering vegetarian and vegan meals on its domestic flights and it's encouraging to see that vegetarian buy-on-board options on EASYJET significantly outnumber non-veggie options.
For airlines looking to become more vegfriendly, I'd recommend working with veggie chefs to develop menu items; replace dairy products such as milk, cream and butter with a plant-based alternatives in all vegetarian dishes; and always offer at least one plant-based milk.
Simplified catering codes and standardised labelling would also increase transparency.
For LSG Sky Chefs, vegan
meals and lacto-ovo vegetarian meals are the most popular choices among passengers who
order special meals