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The vegan hot dog is already well received, and now many other products are to follow © IMAGO/Manfred Segerer
The IKEA hot dogs have cult status among many customers.
But the furniture giant also adapts to its customers.
This is how the offer will change.
Less meat, more vegetables: Ikea Germany is adding more and more plant-based dishes to its range.
In an interview with Annette Bruhns, food manager Tanja Schramm explains how the change is being received by customers and how AI combats waste.
Ms. Schramm, Ikea doesn't just make furniture, but also food. You are responsible for this in Germany. How many people eat at your place?
We can only estimate that.
If we assume 1.8 eaters per ticket voucher in our restaurants and Swedish bistros - as an average - then we get up to 50 million people per year.
Around half of all customers in our furniture stores also eat with us.
Some people just come to eat, especially breakfast.
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How high is the food share of Ikea Germany's sales?
In Germany 4.5 percent – 267 million euros in the last financial year.
Most recently, at “Veganuary”, you offered a particularly large number of vegan dishes. How is that received?
We took part for the fourth time this year.
This fits perfectly into our concept: we have been offering more and more plant-based dishes for six years.
In January there are four out of six dishes;
Over the year we reach 40 percent of the main courses.
Our goal by 2025 is 50 percent.
Of course, we still offer the classics, such as the duck leg in December.
It's not about restricting our food supply.
Rather, we would like to permanently supplement it with additional healthier and more environmentally conscious options.
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Can you recognize the much-hyped nutritional change among your customers?
I actually see a turnaround in which our customers in Germany are pioneers.
As a global company, we recognize this in the sales figures: in Germany, one in four customers is already choosing a plant-based offer - and the trend is rising.
This is also shown by the results of this year's Veganuary: In January we were able to convince almost twice as many customers to buy a vegan schnitzel dish instead of our chicken schnitzel.
Overall, four out of ten chose a vegetarian or vegan dish in January, a significant increase compared to previous months.
Did die-hard Köttbullar fans complain when you introduced Plantbullar as an alternative to Swedish meatballs?
On the contrary.
There was only a request from fans of the veggie hot dog that this vegetarian hot dog stay as it is, namely with a vegetable and corn kernel base.
It tastes so good.
That's why we introduced a plant hot dog for everyone who wants a taste that's closer to the original.
In our Swedish bistros, 25 percent of customers already choose a plant-based hot dog or vegetable hot dog.
You want to offer 80 percent of your shops only plant-based foods by 2025.
Yes, in the packaged food range, in addition to our plant-based food range, there will almost only be our iconic non-vegetable products: Köttbullar and salmon.
Is this based on Ikea's commitment to the Green Deal?
We have a very strong sustainability strategy and want to halve our CO₂ footprint by 2030.
We are a global company and know that our behavior has a real impact.
We are therefore pursuing a stringent CO₂ reduction path in which food plays a fundamental role.
This includes replacing meat – especially with the products that people know and like.
Lidl has been offering plant-based foods at the same or lower price as comparable animal alternatives since October 2023. How is it at Ikea?
We've been doing it like this for a long time.
The Ingka Group made the decision early on that, since October 2022, our plant-based foods will always be offered at the same or even lower price than the comparable alternative based on animal protein.
And Ikea Germany goes even further: Since October 2022, the plant-based food range of vegetable balls, protein balls, the veggie hot dog and plant-based soft ice cream has always been the more affordable choice, by ten to 50 percent.
People read a lot more about Lidl's vegan offensive than about yours.
This is perhaps only known to specialist committees because we are exotic in the food sector with our system catering in a furniture store.
At the same time, many people are looking at us, including in retail.
Because we are one of the largest system caterers in Germany.
It takes a certain amount of courage to change your product range like that.
So no longer offering five meat dishes and one vegetarian one as a fig leaf.
Keyword packaging: You have recently started offering reusable tableware. Do people come to restaurants so often?
We offer disposable tableware, cups and bowls for a euro deposit, especially in the Swedish bistro, so that our customers can take the drink or hot dog home with them.
This is done via the RECUP/REBOWL reusable system.
Customers can then return the containers to all partner companies throughout Germany, but also to us, and get the deposit back.
You can also pack up leftover food in the bowls in our Swedish restaurants and take them home.
These measures reduce disposable tableware waste – and at the same time food waste.
How much food waste does Ikea produce? In general, it is assumed in the catering sector that 17 percent of food ends up in the trash can.
We addressed the issue nationally for the first time in 2017 with the NGO “United Against Waste”, with the aim of halving this waste.
At the beginning, we put out transparent waste bins for organic waste and recorded the amount of waste so that employees could see what they were actually throwing away.
Later, the waste measurement was taken over and recorded by an AI called “Waste Watcher”.
This is a learning digital scale with a camera.
At the beginning, the employee has to help her and type in what he has thrown in so that she can record it.
Over time, the AI will recognize this even from the stored images.
And this is how you achieved a halving of waste?
In the pre-consumer sector, yes!
And this despite the fact that at the beginning the initial value of our measurements had already visibly decreased before we recorded it.
Why?
Because the transparent bins immediately led to greater awareness among employees.
This awareness is the real game-changer in this matter.
Are you now tackling what's left on the plate, i.e. the post-consumer waste?
Yes, that is the next step.
For example, we have already found out why so many half slices of bread rolls ended up in the trash.
Result: The toppings on our breakfast plates didn't fit into four halves!
Now we have changed the recipe so that the topping is enough.
In addition, our measurements give us a better idea of which products we are offering too much on our plates.
If a portion of fries is too large, the last ones no longer taste good and are left behind.
Or when the best-before date expires: We are now monitoring this too so that we actually sell most of it before it expires.
By Annette Bruhns