The origin of vegetarianism, in the United States and elsewhere, goes back hundreds of years as early followers of Buddhism, Jainism, and other philosophies and religions practiced vegetarianism. In the modern era, people have embraced vegetarianism for a variety of reasons: health, environmental, and ethical concerns. Today, over seven million Americans call themselves vegetarians, with the numbers increasing year over year.
As a data provider, you have a unique opportunity to capitalize on the vegetarian trend by offering a variety of services and applications to help your customers to adjust and continue to offer vegetarian-friendly items on their menu. Of course, it’s essential to first understand the vegetarian trend in order to effectively capitalize on it. Let’s dive in.
Understanding the Vegetarian Trend
Before pivoting into the vegetarian trend, it’s important to understand the different types of vegetarians and how they approach their diets. A vegetarian diet is defined by excluding meat, poultry, and fish. It often includes only plant-based foods. Vegans do not eat any animal products, including eggs, dairy, and honey. Lacto-vegetarians include dairy in their diet but not eggs. Lacto-ovo-vegetarians include dairy and eggs in their diet, but exclude meat, poultry and fish. Finally, flexitarian or semi-vegetarians include eggs, dairy, and sometimes meat, poultry, and fish in their diet.
It’s essential for restaurant technology providers to understand these different types of vegetarian diets in order to develop products and services that cater to customers’ needs. Additionally, it’s important to understand the different sectors of the vegetarian market. There is the smell-good tribe, health-inclined tribe, ethical tribe, environment tribe and the convenience-seeking tribe. Understanding each tribe and their motivations can help to develop appropriate products and services for each population.
Sales Prospecting in the Foodservice Market
Once you understand the vegetarian trend, you can start looking into how to capitalize on it. An effective way to do so is to start sales prospecting in the foodservice market. In foodservice, sales professionals can utilize data-driven insights to target likely prospects and quickly acquire new leads. This can be a powerful tool to put your restaurant technology in front of the right restaurant owners and chefs.
By segmenting the market with highly targeted prospects and targeting the right channels, sales professionals can gain a competitive edge to acquire more leads with remarkable speed. With data-led insights, the foodservice market can be segmented based on location, size, customer base, menu offerings, and more.
Marketing to the Foodservice Market
In addition to sales prospecting in the foodservice market, restaurant technology providers should also consider utilizing insights to launch data-led, customized marketing campaigns to grab the attention of restaurant owners and chefs. By using data-enriched tech platforms, restaurant technology providers can optimize their campaigns and target right customers with unprecedented market insights. This can drive higher conversions and more closed leads that become conversions.
Find Kitchens & Expand Operations
Finally, a great way to capitalise on the vegetarian trend is to expand your operations with data science, artificial intelligence, and big data analytics. Restaurant technology providers can use this insight to streamline production innovation and strategically expand their brand. This can give restaurant technology providers an edge over their competitors and help them better understand the market and optimize their processes.
The vegetarian trend is growing and restaurant technology providers have a unique opportunity to capitalize on this trend. By understanding the vegetarian trend, start sales prospecting in the foodservice market, launching data-led customized marketing campaigns, and optimizing operations with data science and AI, restaurant technology providers will be well positioned to succeed in this industry.
