As someone who grew up in Brisbane and has a soft spot for seeing new food options appear in my hometown, I should be excited about the arrival of Dirk’s, a new hot dog restaurant offering plant-based sausages.
Instead, I find myself feeling rather frustrated.
Read more below.
The reason for my frustration is simple.
While you can order a plant-based sausage, none of the buns used for the hot dogs are plant-based or vegan. I genuinely appreciate anything that makes it easier for people to choose something other than meat, but if you are going to the trouble of offering a plant-based sausage, why stop there? Why not have one vegan bun and give people the option of a completely plant-based hot dog?
There is another part of Dirk’s approach that I find particularly difficult to understand.
The business advertises that it donates $1 from each hot dog sold to loyalty card holders to RSPCA Queensland. Supporting animal welfare sounds like an admirable thing for a business to do, but there is something very strange about a restaurant built around selling meat and animal by-products simultaneously presenting itself as a supporter of an animal welfare organisation.
The animals used to produce the meat being sold at Dirk’s have been farmed and killed, so I struggle with the contradiction. To me, it raises an uncomfortable question about what animal welfare means when some animals are being protected while others are being used as food. I find the whole thing difficult to reconcile.
I can acknowledge that a plant-based sausage could mean less meat being consumed but when a business is already offering a plant-based filling, not providing a vegan bun feels like an unnecessary half measure. And when that same business is making a donation to an animal welfare organisation, the contradiction becomes even more noticeable.
You can apparently order the plant-based sausage and suitable plant-based toppings in a bowl, creating a fully plant-based meal, but at a hot dog restaurant that feels rather redundant.
So I want to know what you think. Is Dirk’s approach a step forward because it gives people an alternative to meat, or is it a step sideways because it stops short of a proper plant-based hot dog while simultaneously supporting an animal welfare organisation?
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Agree – any restaurant moving forwards with vegan options deserves support, but only to an extent. This feels so half-hearted that it is almost designed to fail – so that in the future they can say they tried plant-based but it didn’t sell.
Hope people make an effort to let them know they really need plant based rolls as well – so they know the business is there if they make an additional tiny effort.
I’ll be letting them know when I am living back there!