5-star safari lodge in South Africa works with Certified Vegan Hospitality Consultant to add amazing vegan menu options
/An industry case study detailing the impact of a recently launched vegan breakfast menu at a 5 star lodge in South Africa. Written by Hayley Cooper, CEO of Wild Dreams Hospitality (Trained and Certified by Vegan Hospitality).
For those of you who don’t know, South Africa is considered a huge ‘’meat eating’’ country. Nearly every South African will tell you their favourite thing to do on the weekend is to have a Braai, which is an Afrikaans word for barbeque or roast. Which of course can totally be made vegan with a range of either mock meats or interesting vegetable creations.
Even though braaiing meat is so common, interest in veganism is at an all-time high in South Africa! The interest is so sizeable, that South Africa shows a higher interest in veganism than countries like France, Italy or Brazil (Source: thesouthafrican.com).
Based on the demand we are seeing, it’s important that the hospitality industry within South Africa is ready for the influx of vegan customers coming their way.
There are already vegan shopping markets popping up all over the country and some amazing, globally recognized brands are based in South Africa, with more and more becoming available.
Kings Camp, a 5 star lodge with main guests coming from overseas recently decided that accommodating vegan requests is not enough. They realized that attracting vegan guests meant they needed to be proactive about their menus and marketing.
The most common countries that Kings Camps guests come from are the countries where we are seeing the biggest demand for vegan food: USA, UK, Germany and Australia (vegansociety.com).
Lucky for them, they have me! – Hayley Cooper, a certified vegan hospitality consultant. I studied and graduated during lockdown and received my Vegan Hospitality Certification in July. Excited to put my newfound skills to the test in my workplace, as I am also part of the management team here, I set about creating and implementing vegan meal options. This forms only a small part of my newly created consulting company called, Wild Dreams Hospitality. (www.wilddreams.co.za) In the future I plan to consult with all departments on how we can make them more Vegan friendly.
Our extensive breakfast menu now has a vegan version of every single dish! And the best part is, wait for it……. Even the meat eaters are loving these dishes!
The first week we launched the menu we served more vegan dishes than non-vegan dishes, and we had no actual guests who identified as vegan at the time!
We also received fantastic feedback from the guests, saying how impressed they were with the menu.
Another important factor is that the vegan options are on the menu all the time, and not only when we have vegan guests, which is something that many lodges aren’t currently doing. By having vegan options on the menu permanently, we are attracting vegan guests to the lodge, as word of mouth spreads through past guests, friends and family that should anyone want an amazing vegan friendly experience, at a 5 star lodge in South Africa, then look no further than us.
What is also important is that this is a collaboration between myself, the consultant, and the Executive Chef, Gareth. He has been a Chef for many years, is highly skilled and experienced and knows what works best in the lodge kitchen.
To give you an example of how we collaborated, I had a vegan homemade yoghurt on the first draft of the menu to go with the continental platter, however there are a couple of reasons this is not ideal:
Probiotics are expensive and you need these to make the yoghurt.
You need to make it 2 days in advance and if this gets forgotten to be made or it gets used up quicker than expected, then it’s not something that can just be whipped up quickly by the chefs.
Chef Gareth suggested a vegan custard instead which may not be something you would typically think of to have for breakfast but this has worked out exceptionally well, it actually tastes more like yoghurt than the yoghurt I’ve personally made in the past, its cheaper, quicker and all-round a winner working both operationally for Kings Camp, and also in-line with the budget.
We now also have vegan options on our lunch and dinner menus, and it is very satisfying to see people enjoying vegan food surrounded by nature and wildlife here at the lodge.
If you want to learn more about Kings Camp then check the website: www.kingscamp.com and come and check out our amazing setting in the Greater Kruger to enjoy the animals that live here as well as the amazing vegan menu!
Text - Hayley Cooper
Photos - Grant Murphy
Chef – Gareth Jarvis