Place to Plate
Consumers are looking more and more at their diets, both from a health perspective and to reduce their personal impact on the planet.
According to a recent YouGov survey, 59% of people are making conscious decisions to live a low-carbon lifestyle, with changes to diet seen as the most effective way of doing this. However, the majority of people (61%) feel they need more information to help them.
So Cumbria Tourism has been working with Westmorland and Furness Council and Future Proof Cumbria – as part of the Place to Plate project – to understand more about what stops food and drink businesses from adding carbon information to their menus.
This project has been funded by Innovate UK as part of the Net zero living: Pathfinder places scheme.
Key Findings
According to Place to Plate research, a third of businesses hadn’t considered carbon costed menus, didn’t have the time, didn’t know enough about them or didn’t know where to start. All are valid comments when there are lots of pressures on businesses, plus carbon calculating can be a bit of a minefield!
The research also shows that more than 50% of businesses who don’t currently have a carbon costed menu are unsure what this actually is. There is also confusion about what is classed as low carbon and where food miles/buying local fits in.
What are low carbon foods and carbon costed menus?
Despite what many people think, the bulk of food emissions come from production and not from transportation. Food miles/transport are just a small part of the overall footprint.
Meat and dairy products are generally higher in carbon than plant-based products (due to how they’re produced). The carbon impact varies by product too, with chicken and fish tending to be lower carbon than beef or lamb.
However, some plant-based products (e.g. those grown out of season) use more energy to grow and have a high carbon footprint. The carbon footprint of some fruits can be quite high.
A carbon costed menu is a menu which shows the carbon impact of each dish, allowing consumers to choose dishes with a lower carbon impact if they want to. This can be displayed as a figure in C02e or as a traffic light system indicating high/low carbon emissions.
Why is having carbon counts on menus important?
According to Place to Plate research, almost half of businesses (45%) not currently supplying carbon costed menus didn’t think their customers wanted carbon costed menus.
Whilst customers don’t always specifically request a carbon costed menu, the sustainability of your business is becoming increasingly important to consumers. Having carbon costed dishes on your menu really helps show you are striving to be a sustainable business. It also provides more options for people with specific dietary requirements, as low carbon dishes are often dairy and or meat free.
According to Foodprint From Nutritics’ bespoke survey of 5000 consumers, sustainability influences decisions. Two in five consumers (41%) say they are very or quite likely to choose a pub or restaurant based on its sustainability commitments and performance.
Despite pressure on consumers’ spending, more than a third (37%) are also willing to spend more than they usually would if a product or brand has strong sustainability credentials.
Plus, carbon footprint labels can influence sales. Well over a third of consumers (38%) say information about the carbon footprint of options on menus would influence their choices. Two in five (41%) would like to see more of this data on menus.
This does vary by age group, area, gender and venue, but the research also shows how engagement with sustainability correlates with the frequency of eating and drinking out. More than half (52%) of people who visit pubs, bars and restaurants at least weekly say sustainability influences their choice of venue, compared to only 36% of those who go out less often.
Meanwhile, people who are currently spending more than usual on meals and drinks are 15% more likely to use sustainability as a factor in their venue selection than those who are spending less.
You can access the full research at the Nutritics website.
How do you calculate the carbon of a dish?
There are a few carbon calculators out there which you can access for free or you can pay for online tools such as foodprints, who take a lot of the work out of it.
Top tips for using carbon calculators and displaying calculations:
- Pick a calculator and stick to it (consistency is key).
- If you aren’t confident enough to give exact figures, use a traffic light system to give an indication of how carbon intensive the dish is.
- Use a QR code so people can access a carbon costed version of the menu online. This saves a cluttered menu and allows people to access full details if they’re interested (and ignore information if not).
- Be open about the potential flaws of your carbon calculations. Give a link to the calculator so people can see how it makes the calculations.
Depending on how often your menu changes, calculating carbon for every dish can be a big commitment, but it’s one which should pay off and attract a younger market.
So what can you do if you are a time-poor, cash-strapped operator doing your best? Well, you don’t necessarily have to carbon calculate your full menu! You could simply add a few carbon costed, low carbon dishes to your menu for those who might want them.
Making a low carbon menu or dishes work for you
Low carbon food can be good for the bottom line in multiple ways.
According to WRAP, meat is the most expensive and carbon intensive thing that we waste. Meat costs have increased more then 11% over the last 10 years, with 1kg of bacon costing over six times as much as 1kg of potatoes.
Low carbon dishes tend to use less meat and have a better profit margin.
So how do you get people to pick these over more traditional dishes?
This is where Menu Engineering comes in. Where you place an item on your menu, how you describe it and how you price it, has a big impact on how often it is picked.
Top five tips for menu placement
- Don’t separate out the low carbon or plant-based/vegetarian dishes. Give them equal billing to your traditional dishes and bestsellers.
- Make your best low carbon dish stand out by placing it in a box or as a special.
- If your dishes don’t contain meat, avoid using phrases like ‘meat-free’ as it sounds like something is missing. Focus instead on them being ‘packed full of veggie goodness’.
- List high-margin plant-based items in the ‘golden triangle’. When reading menus, customers tend to start in the middle, go to the top right corner, then the top left corner.
- Sell higher margin, more plant-based items at a lower price point than dishes featuring meat or seafood, to make them more appealing.
Download and add our free Carbon Costed Recipes to your menu
As part of the Place to Plate project, we have developed a series of carbon-costed recipes with lower carbon versions for you to add to your menus. We’ve also added a downloadable QR for each recipe, which links back to the carbon costing information for the dish. Simply add the QR code to your menu and your customers can use it to access the carbon costing information.
Starters
Mains
