Vegetarianism

Vegetarianism is an increasing popular concept in today's society and it is a lifestyle with a huge potential to grow. (http://www.vrg.org/nutshell/market.htm#market) In order to build a successful vegetarian restaurant chain a lot of factors need to be taken into account in order to avoid making wrong decisions with regards to your restaurant's concept and customers. So before making decisions on your restaurant's image, location and menu a careful analysis of the target audience should be conducted.

Identifying the customers and understanding their values therefore is the key to the success. According to "The Vegetarian Resource Group" vegetarianism is a loosely defined term. There are many groups identifying themselves with a vegetarian diet; from vegans to lacto-ovo vegetarians to people that simply want to reduce the meat content of their diet, known as semi-vegetarians or meat reducers. The marketing team should not therefore narrow down their target customers only to vegans and vegetarians. (http://www.vrg.org/nutshell/market.htm#market) Even though vegans and vegetarians are going to be the primary customers, narrowing the restaurant's communications strategy by targeting solely these two specific groups means that an important segment of the customer base will be lost, restricting the customer base to a very small percentage of the population. (http://www.vrg.org/nutshell/market.htm#market) However the importance of attracting vegans to the chain should not be underestimated as they tend to be 'loyal' and 'enthusiastic customers who generate word-of-mouth recommendations' and will be therefore a very significant element to advertising the chain by influencing a wider range of customers.

In the Netherlands, a research was conducted with participants divided into three distinct groups; 'vegetarians', 'non-vegetarian consumers of meat substitutes' and 'meat consumers'. According to this research vegetarians tended to be people with 'higher education levels' and 'socioeconomic statuses' than the other two groups and were people usually living in 'urbanized residential areas'. On the other hand people who fell in the meat substitutes group, which is an important segment of the target audience, were more conscious about the price and quality of the food they receive. This is an important factor that needs to be considered when deciding the pricelist of the menu. However another research conducted in Columbia, Canada came to the conclusion that vegetarians tended to be 'young, single, female and with low-income'. Too high prices might discourage potential customers from becoming loyal customers, but if the aim of the marketing team of the restaurant is to be differentiated from competitors, higher prices should be considered to avoid identifying the chain with a cheap fast-food chain and being nothing more