Disney is adding vegan dishes to its theme park menus – are you excited?
Restaurants at Disney’s US theme parks are serving plant-based items as demand grows, while top cruise liners such as Royal Caribbean International and Oceania Cruises are offering vegan menus and all-vegan trips
This week, Disney became the latest company in the travel world to offer a warm welcome to people who avoid eating animal products. The theme park giant announced a broad expansion of its menus, promising that all major quick-service and table-service restaurants would include plant-based items at its US theme parks and hotels.
“For years and years, we’ve always made an effort to have something meatless available at most of our dining locations,” says Cheryl Dolven, manager of health and wellness in the food and beverage division at Disney Parks. “We got a lot of requests: ‘Can you take the dairy, egg or honey out of that as well?’”
The parks did have some items that fit that description. But the new plant-based initiative, she said, is “our way of going all-in on that”. A green leaf icon will indicate which items fit the veggie definition.
Disney is not using the terms “vegan” or “vegetarian” because the company has found that there’s not a consistent definition, Dolven says. Instead, Disney specifies that its plant-based food will not contain animal meat, dairy, eggs or honey. (The Vegan Society defines a vegan diet the same way, and adds that vegans avoid animal-derived materials, products tested on animals and places that use animals for entertainment.)
“We know it also meets the needs of a growing number of Americans that might not be taking meat out of their diet, but they’re just trying to get more plants in,” Dolven says.
A 2018 Gallup poll shows that while the number of people who identify as vegetarian (5 per cent) or vegan (3 per cent) had changed little compared with 2012, sales of plant-based foods increased more than 8 per cent in 2017.
“Increased sales of plant-based foods, without a corresponding increase in the percentage of Americans who say they are vegan or vegetarian, likely indicates a greater overall interest in these products,” the Gallup snapshot said. “Based on the growth of the market and Gallup’s latest readings on vegetarianism and veganism, it appears Americans are eager to include alternatives to animal products in their diets but are not willing to give up animal products completely.”
At the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, which includes four theme parks, new options became available last week at quick-service restaurants and from October 3 at table-service locations. In a blog post, the company said more than 400 plant-based dishes would be available. At Disneyland in California, the new dishes will be available by spring of 2020.
The push was at least two years in the making, Dolven says. Part of the reason for the long planning phase was that the company wanted the new dishes to fit in with the themes of the restaurants where they would be served.