Marketing rewards for Vegan Day pizza restaurants

Restaurants are being urged to design healthy vegan pizzas in preparation for World Vegan Day on November 1, in return for huge marketing rewards.

Nutritionists across the UK have rallied together to organise a campaign for the no-meat day, to encourage consumers to make healthier choices about their food. In return for creating a low-fat, low-carb, non-meat pizza, restaurants will be rewarded with a host of free advertising.

PEA PR​ have offered free marketing and consultancy support for the launch of the pizza; Vegetarian food guides will list restaurants offering healthy vegan pizzas in their European, UK and London editions; www.worldveganday.org.uk​ have offered free banner advertising on their website for a healthy vegan pizza, and TV nutritionist Yvonne Bishop-Weston will be on hand to help promote the UK’s first nationally-available vegan pizza.

“It’s not more nutrient depleted carbohydrates we need, its more fruit and vegetables!” said Bishop-Weston. “The average Pizza is one of the unhealthiest fast foods you can eat. High in nutrient stripped simple carbohydrates, drenched in animal fat, often high in salt and sugar and low in protein. We need to replace more of the saturated animal fat in our diets with plant based foods rich in essential fats. It’s especially important we find creative ways of getting our children to eat more fruit and vegetables. A healthy pizza is a super idea.”

According to PEA PR, a survey completed earlier this year predicted the vegetarian and vegan market has the potential to grow up to 600 per cent, increasing the amount of adults living with such a diet to as much as 30m in the UK alone.

Lawrence Kay, Founder of Foodworks​, also recommends that restaurants begin to add vegetarian or vegan options to their menus in order to cash in on a rapidly growing market.

Optimum Nutritionists have devised a healthy 64-ingredient vegan pizza recipe especially for World Vegan Day, which is hoped to give chefs and restaurateurs the inspiration to create their own version (see below).

For more information and ideas for how to create the perfect vegan or vegetarian menu, contact Foods for Life via www.optimumnutritionists.com.​

Foods for Life 64 Ingredient Healthy Pizzaz Pizza

For the Dough Base​

• Wholemeal flour, baking powder or yeast
• Cold pressed virgin olive and rapeseed oils
• Soya milk (apple sweetened, calcium, vitamin D, vitamin B12)
• Himalayan rock salt, black pepper, rosemary, marjoram, parsley

For the Tomato Sauce​

• Chopped tomatoes, tomato paste, peppadew peppers
• Onions, red peppers, celery, cauliflower, aubergine (finely chopped)
• Carrots, sweet potato, parsnip (grated)
• Spinach, watercress, cabbage, courgettes, kale (finely chopped)
• Mango or whole mango juice (whole fruit, sugar free)
• Ground almonds, ground hazelnuts, ground buckwheat flour
• Garlic, oregano, nutmeg, black pepper, Himalayan Rock salt, sage, basil, bay leaves, nori seaweed
• Cold pressed virgin rapeseed oil

For the Rainbow Toppings​

• Pickled wild mushroom mix (Button Mushrooms, Oyster Mushrooms, Shitake
• Mushrooms, porcini, ceps, etc in truffle infused flax oil)
• Green vegetable mix (broccoli, peas, mange tout, green beans, broad beans)
• Yellow vegetable mix (sweetcorn, pineapple, yellow peppers, chickpeas, pine-nuts)
• Red vegetable mix (red peppers, cherry tomato, red onions, chopped red cabbage, kidney beans)
• Nut and seed mix (shelled hemp seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, cashew nuts, pistachios, brazil nuts)
• Asparagus and delicatessen mix (artichoke, green olives, black olives, capers, pickled figs)
• Selection of dairy free cheeses (such as Redwoods super melting cheddar or mozzarella) or a cheesy sauce made from soya milk and rapeseed oil emulsified with balsamic vinegar and flavoured with mustard, ketchup, yeast extract /bouillon powder or yeast flakes and thickened if necessary with mashed potato.