VEGANUARY in our employee restaurant

The employee restaurant serves around 1,000 meals a day in Bielefeld. The team of around 20 employees is led by the head of the company kitchen Martin Wittkowsky, and they all work passionately to offer colleagues & visitors a fresh, delicious and variable menu every day. In addition to the recurring classics, a fresh daily salad bar and sweet desserts, there are regularly special offers happening. The inspiration therefore is taken from current themes or festive occasions.

Vegan dishes during the lunch break

Veganuary has been taking place in the Dr. Oetker employee restaurant for a few years already. The Veganuary initiative is about trying various vegan dishes and products and discovering how you like the vegan lifestyle. The first Veganuary offers in the employee restaurant consisted of offering a vegan dish on individual days or for a week. Due to the positive feedback from the employees, it has been established for the whole month of January meanwhile. 

"We want to offer all Veganuary participants the chance to enjoy a delicious, high-quality vegan dish in our employee restaurant," says Martin Wittkowsky.  

This means that there will be a plant-based dish to choose from on the menu every day in January. No dish will be repeated during the 31- day period, as diversity and variety are appreciated. You could think that a lot of planning and preparation is required for such an event, well since the team’s experience is great and the development of dietary preferences in recent years have shown that a dish does not have to be extraordinary. 

Growing demand for plant-based alternatives

The growing demand for vegetarian dishes has automatically lead to an increase in vegan dishes being served at the employee restaurant as well – even without labelling them as such. The demand for vegetarian dishes throughout the year is now virtually balanced in relation to dishes that contain meat, and Martin Wittkowsky adds "Five years ago, we served perhaps a third of the vegetarian dishes that are now ordered every day.” The employee restaurant team is particularly pleased with the positive feedback from the colleagues, who are growing increasingly enthusiastic about participating in the yearly Veganuary Challenge. 

The staff restaurants in our national companies in Italy and France also offer a vegan lunch menu in January. In our Veganuary story from Italy, cameo employee Giorgia Ferretti talks about her experiences with a vegan diet and how she integrates it into her everyday life.

In France, all employees also receive a free pretzel snack from Ancel in Veganuary. All pretzels and snacks (apart from those with cheese) are vegan.