LONG BEACH, Calif. — When Stephanie Morgan began slinging dishes from her food truck, vegan food was an oddity undefined to the average person.
Twelve years and two restaurants later, Morgan and Seabird Kitchen have expanded her brand of high-end vegan cuisine as consumer appetite for that kind of food has grown.
Morgan’s restaurants, located in Long Beach, Costa Mesa and a third slated to open in Los Feliz in April, focus on whole foods while dispensing with anything processed.
“I forget all the time we’re a vegan restaurant,” she said. “I’m just creating food that tastes good and that I want to eat.”
When Morgan began, vegan food was an outlier. Now, national restaurant chains have heavily invested in plant-based alternatives.
The market has grown since then and appears to be gaining momentum, especially among millennials. About one in five millennials have shifted to plant-based diets, according to YouGov, a London data and analytics group. Their reason, it found, was to benefit the planet.
And money for plant-based ventures is poised to explode. While the market in 2020 was about $29 billion, Bloomberg Intelligence forecasts the industry could explode up to nearly $170 billion in the next decade.
Advocacy for a vegan diet began largely as a food ethos discussion highlighting practices of industrial poultry and cattle farms. In recent years, the conversation has expanded to include the greenhouse gas toll such farm practices can exact on the environment.
Bill Gates has spoken publicly about the need for people, especially in rich countries, to eat plant-based meat alternatives. He has invested in a range of companies, including Impossible Foods, Beyond Meat and Memphis Meats.
Big money, growing interest among young professionals and better products have led to the nationalization of plant-based food.
“Now there are impossible chicken nuggets at every KFC nationwide,” Morgan said. That’s very telling.”
Beyond Meat partnered with KFC on a trial run in 2017 to distribute Beyond Chicken Nuggets in 10 stores. Now, the nuggets are making a nationwide push for a limited time.
Impossible Burgers have an even broader footprint. They’re offered at a host of national, local and independent restaurants like Burger King, Red Robin and White Castle. The Socialist in Long Beach has carried the burger for years.
California has been an appealing state for some business owners to begin their vegan-centric ventures.
Sacbe Meling, a Downey native who now lives in Las Vegas, opened his first location out of state in Long Beach. His restaurant, Panchos Vegan Tacos, takes the flavors and textures of Mexican cuisine and flips it for a vegan audience. California, he explained, was the obvious place to expand outside Vegas.
"It’s the fastest-growing vegan market, and I think it has a lot of vegans and vegan-friendly people," he said. "They might still eat meat but they’re open to going to a vegan restaurant."
Meling’s restaurant also views itself as a vegan restaurant second, instead of promoting itself as a Mexican restaurant that happens to only serve food made from plants.
Meling said his only ceiling is the economy, rising labor costs and a consumer pool that may not be willing to spend as much time in his restaurants, limiting his interest in opening new locations.
Morgan is pushing ahead with her plans, having committed to a lease five years ago. The challenge, she said, comes down to how plant-based food is valued. Top-of-the-line carrots prepared impeccably with the freshest interest could cost $18, she noted, a price too high for most.
“I have to weigh the perceived value from the guest which is my constant battle,” she said. “You can get calories really cheap, but you can’t get nutrients really cheap.”
However, evidence is accumulating that growth in vegan cuisine — fast-food or gourmet — is growing toward a ceiling of uncertain height.
“It’s a really easy movement to get behind,” Morgan said. “It’s crazy to see now how far it’s come.”