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June/Jul y 202 2 V MAGAZINE And that’s not all. In April, Starbucks announced the launch in Hong Kong of a plant- based menu in collaboration with Impossible Foods and Oatly . The latter company with which, last year, the American chain already launched a line of products prepared with plant- based milk. CLASSICAL CATERING INITIATIVES It could be argued that the turn towards animal protein- free menus represents a global phenomenon, destined to involve mainly large, international players. However, this is not the case. In fact, the plant- based wave also touches the more traditional restaurant industry. Two emblematic cases demonstrate this. The first concerns one of New York’s best-known restaurants, Eleven Madison Park , three Michelin stars from 2012 to 2020 and at the top of the list of the 50 best in the world in 2017: after the forced stop due to the pandemic, the restaurant announced its decision to offer its customers exclusively plant-based dishes. And this is not a trend that is only in vogue overseas. This is demonstrated by the second case that is worth monitoring, that of 3B , a new restaurant in the Navigli area of Milan, whose menu, thanks to an agreement with Future Farm , a leading Brazilian vegan meat company, is entirely made with plant- based ingredients. ‘With us,’ explains owner Leonardo Viviani , ‘the normal relationship between plant-based and non-vegan dishes is literally inverted: here it is meat that is the alternative. And patrons like this feature. In fact, our proposal succeeds in convincing not only the audience of vegans, who by choice consciously seek a menu free of animal ingredients, but also a wider public, made up of customers who try, sometimes casually, our dishes and then return to enjoy them”. Cic members are, in short, warned: including a plant-based product proposal in the range could prove to be a good idea. And this is because it could make it possible to intercept the demand for new restaurants. And, ultimately, represent a driving force for business, in times that are certainly not easy. PLANT-BASED IS A MARKET TO START THINKING ABOUT IN ORDER TO EXPAND THE VEGGIE OFFER ALSO AT THE BAR OR RESTAURANT ________________________________ BOX Italian tradition in veg sauce Bringing the great dishes of Italian cuisine into the vegetable world? At first sight, a difficult, if not impossible mission. The challenge, however, does not frighten Planted - a Swiss company now present not only in Italy but also in Germany, Austria, France and the United Kingdom - which supplies 1,800 restaurants, 130 of which are in Italy, with its line of plant- based food products. And which intends to use its ingredients to create local recipes for chefs’ kitchens. “We are also looking for alliances in Italy,” announces Marta Residori , Marketing Manager Italy of Planted, “to create ‘limited editions’ of our products, based on the great tradition of Italian cuisine. The chef’s test has already proved successful in the case of Chinese cuisine: Tim Raue, a bistar-starred chef from Berlin, has in fact created a very tasty Peking duck veggie limited edition for Planted. __________________________________