News Walt Disney World restaurants to begin expanding plant-based menu options

Weather_Lady

Well-Known Member
I'm not a vegan myself, but I don't necessarily want to have meat with every meal, as I've reaped substantial health benefits by cutting down on it. More options are always good, and I'm glad to hear that the new vegan ones will be labeled with a special icon for easy identification.

Of course, it's only a matter of time before I utter the words, "I'll have the vegan burger with kale and quinoa... and could you put some bacon and cheese on that, please?" ;)
 
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mdcpr

Well-Known Member
Oh Disney late to the trend again.
I am not vegan but I do enjoy following the drama of veganism and in the last 6 months the fad/trend has really started to die with some of the famous influencers deciding a plant based diet is no longer for them.
This is a combo of vegan and vegetarians meals, and it is not a fad. I'm sure WDW took their time to study their demographics, their target market (which seems to be less and less the hardcore Disney fans), and they made these decisions. Plus I'm sure that developing these recipes took lots of testing so they can mass produce them. As for this being a fad, most vegetarians I know have been doing this for 20+ years. While I only started a vegetarian diet about 6 months ago for health reasons and I actually feel better.
 

Queen of the WDW Scene

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
This is a combo of vegan and vegetarians meals, and it is not a fad. Most vegetarians I know have been doing since their 20s. I only started this about 6 months ago for health reasons and I actually feel better. As for WDW, they know their market and who they want to go after, so these options are welcome by a lot of us.

I'm not saying that there are not always going to be vegans and veterinarians but if you follow along with the influencers that were pushing veganism you'll see that it was a fad/trend for a number of them.

And I stand by my statement of Disney7 being late to the game.
They always are.
Instagram walls? Late.
Minnie ear headbands? LATE.
Instagramable food? Late.
Attraction specific shirts with taglines? Late.

I'm sure by now you've realized how much I love Disney but there is no denying they wait too long and then people want to move onto something else and there they are pushing the older trends.
Yet there's other things that they jump into too fast like having too many Star Wars movies in such a short period of time. Even Iger admitted they pumped them out too quickly.
 
This is a combo of vegan and vegetarians meals, and it is not a fad. I'm sure WDW took their time to study their demographics, their target market (which seems to be less and less the hardcore Disney fans), and they made these decisions. Plus I'm sure that developing these recipes took lots of testing so they can mass produce them. As for this being a fad, most vegetarians I know have been doing this for 20+ years. While I only started a vegetarian diet about 6 months ago for health reasons and I actually feel better.
Agreed! There are plenty of YouTube “influencers” that sway from fad to fad like the wind, but they truly weren’t vegetarian or vegans to begin with. And these new offering not only apply to vegetarians, there are many people out there that don’t feel like EVERY meal has to include meat in it. I haven’t eaten meat in years and don’t miss it, though I do miss eating out at restaurants while on the road because there are so few options so it will be nice to see more than “here’s a salad or veggie burger” 😁
 

networkpro

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
Yes
This is a combo of vegan and vegetarians meals, and it is not a fad. I'm sure WDW took their time to study their demographics, their target market (which seems to be less and less the hardcore Disney fans), and they made these decisions. Plus I'm sure that developing these recipes took lots of testing so they can mass produce them. As for this being a fad, most vegetarians I know have been doing this for 20+ years. While I only started a vegetarian diet about 6 months ago for health reasons and I actually feel better.

As it represents ~1% of consumers, fad or not, it's not prevalent. Everyone is not the same and what will kill one person is perfectly fine for another (note its an affectation or choice for some, but a biological necessity for others). Vodka is vegan too.
 

mdcpr

Well-Known Member
I'm not saying that there are not always going to be vegans and veterinarians but if you follow along with the influencers that were pushing veganism you'll see that it was a fad/trend for a number of them.

And I stand by my statement of Disney7 being late to the game.
They always are.
Instagram walls? Late.
Minnie ear headbands? LATE.
Instagramable food? Late.
Attraction specific shirts with taglines? Late.

I'm sure by now you've realized how much I love Disney but there is no denying they wait too long and then people want to move onto something else and there they are pushing the older trends.
Yet there's other things that they jump into too fast like having too many Star Wars movies in such a short period of time. Even Iger admitted they pumped them out too quickly.
I do agree, they can be late in the game. It happens to a lot of very big corporation with massive layers of leadership and slow decision-making.
 

mdcpr

Well-Known Member
As it represents ~1% of consumers, fad or not, it's not prevalent. Everyone is not the same and what will kill one person is perfectly fine for another (note its an affectation or choice for some, but a biological necessity for others). Vodka is vegan too.
I agree Vodka is vegan, and your point is.... And as for the 1%, not sure where you got that, but about 30% of the world population is vegetarian--and 3% of that lives in the US. That's about 8 million Americans who are vegetarians.
 

networkpro

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
Yes
I agree Vodka is vegan, and your point is.... And as for the 1%, not sure where you got that, but about 30% of the world population is vegetarian--and 3% of that lives in the US. That's about 8 million Americans who are vegetarians.

Neither were represented in Walts Disneyland. Oh and before you drag out anything from Faunalytics, 84% of Vegetarians and Vegans return to meat (Hal Herzog Ph.D. Psychology Today Dec 02, 2014 )
 
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As it represents ~1% of consumers, fad or not, it's not prevalent. Everyone is not the same and what will kill one person is perfectly fine for another (note its an affectation or choice for some, but a biological necessity for others). Vodka is vegan too.
According to a recent poll by Gallup, 8% of Americans describe themselves as Vegetarian or Vegan. In the 30-49 age group that number is 12%. It’s much less prevalent in the 50+ age group. So I would say the target demographic of Disney that is veggie is much bigger than you think and sort of explains why they are expanding options.

While still a small portion of retail grocery sales, plant based options are on a huge growth trajectory. “Refrigerated plant-based meat is driving category growth with sales up an impressive 37 percent. In comparison, sales in the conventional meat category grew just two percent during the same period. Sales of plant-based milks have grown 6 percent over the past year, now making up 13 percent of the entire milk category. Meanwhile, cow’s milk sales have declined 3 percent.”

Looks like Disney sees a trend and wants to get a part of it 😁
 
Neither were represented in Walts Disneyland. Oh and before you drag out anything from Faunalytics, 84% of Vegetarians and Vegans return to meat (Hal Herzog Ph.D. Psychology Today Dec 02, 2014 )
I don’t doubt it.... look up the term Carnism. There’s a great TED talk somewhere out there about it. It’s very hard to escape the social aspect of food and part of that is convenient options not being available most places you eat. That’s why I’m happy more are becoming available for those that really do not want to continue eating meat but have a hard time breaking the habit 😁
 

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