Latest / Best of Business / Cathie Cottle: Kind Café owner says cost of living pressures forced plant-based café to start selling meat

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Cathie Cottle: Kind Café owner says cost of living pressures forced plant-based café to start selling meat · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks at b
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  Speaker 2: All Right. A vegan cafe in Auckland has had to
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  Speaker 2: start serving meat dishes. This is due to rising cost pressures.
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  Speaker 2: The mostly plant based eatery Kind Cafe at morning Side
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  Speaker 2: said that the business was forced to make the decision.
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  Speaker 2: Why just to stay afloat?
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  Speaker 3: Now?
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  Speaker 2: Remember the Restaurant Association's annual report out this morning showed
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  Speaker 2: that sales were up five point eight percent, but businesses
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  Speaker 2: are still struggling due to high running costs. And so
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  Speaker 2: Kathy Cottle is the owner of the Kind Cafe and
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  Speaker 2: joins me.
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  Speaker 3: Now hallo, Kathy, surey Andrew, how are you doing good?
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  Speaker 2: But this has to be a black day for a
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  Speaker 2: vegan cafe because you're selling meat.
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  Speaker 3: It is a very dark day for me personally. Just
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  Speaker 3: elev interest when we don't call ourself a vegan cafa.
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  Speaker 3: We never have. We've been vegetarians but mostly vegans. Okay, yep,
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  Speaker 3: just a point of interest here, but it is a
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  Speaker 3: really it's a sad day.
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  Speaker 2: It is a sad day. Do you hope it's a
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  Speaker 2: temporary move?
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  Speaker 3: I do hope it's a temporary move. I really do.
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  Speaker 3: I hope that we can get back to the principles
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  Speaker 3: that we started with eventually. One of the things that
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  Speaker 3: we have had to do this for. It is of
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  Speaker 3: course a financial cause and call. But we have a
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  Speaker 3: lot of our customers who have said to us over
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  Speaker 3: the last couple of months, they've got friends, they've got
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  Speaker 3: family who will just not set restaurant. And when we
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  Speaker 3: opened six years ago, part of our mantra was that
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  Speaker 3: we wanted to make a space that vegetarian food was
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  Speaker 3: more accessible to people, but also to help people go
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  Speaker 3: on a journey, a traveling travel on a journey towards
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  Speaker 3: a more plant based diet.
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  Speaker 2: Very cool, but here's a question for you. Here's a
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  Speaker 2: question for you. Is it more expensive to run a
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  Speaker 2: vegan restaurant, which is why you've had to resort back
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  Speaker 2: to meat or is that just you know, a myth legend.
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  Speaker 3: I think it is more expensive. Our chiefs have to
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  Speaker 3: go to a lot of efforts to make our own sources.
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  Speaker 3: There's a whole whole lot of things that cannot just
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  Speaker 3: be bought as easily you think it's just a simple burger.
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  Speaker 3: We now have a fried chicken burger on our menu,
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  Speaker 3: or a Korean chicken burger. You can also replace that
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  Speaker 3: with a tofu patty, but a lot more effort and
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  Speaker 3: work goes into making the vegetarian patties, the vegetarian sources,
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  Speaker 3: the vegetarian flavors that we need to make that food
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  Speaker 3: really tasty, have a lot of texture and color.
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  Speaker 2: And we know all restaurants, it's rented staff, it's food.
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  Speaker 2: It's just about every part of the cafe business has
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  Speaker 2: gone up, and you need to raise a revenue by
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  Speaker 2: fifty percents that you've got meat. Can I ask a
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  Speaker 2: very hard and horrible question, are there enough vegetarians who
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  Speaker 2: support a vegetarian only restaurant or do you need some
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  Speaker 2: of us carnivals too?
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  Speaker 3: No, we do need the carnivals, and I think over
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  Speaker 3: probably the last year, I've seen more and more people
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  Speaker 3: walking out of our cafe once they've recognized that were
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  Speaker 3: a vegetarian cafe.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, but here's another here's another question on that. Now
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  Speaker 2: that you've had meat come through your door and served
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  Speaker 2: and prepared, are you afraid that some vegetarians, in a
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  Speaker 2: politically correct move, well but boycott you in the future
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  Speaker 2: after the cost crisis passes.
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  Speaker 3: That is a very real fear, but that is just
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  Speaker 3: something that we will have to f face Wenen if
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  Speaker 3: that happens. Through a lot of my conversations with my
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  Speaker 3: vegetarian and vegan friends, for a lot of them that
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  Speaker 3: rather have the restaurant open than closed and have no
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  Speaker 3: options at all, and a lot of them do eat
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  Speaker 3: at other restaurants that do serve mostly meant and actually,
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  Speaker 3: to be honest, eaten a lot of other restaurants. It
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  Speaker 3: can be quite difficult to have a menu made for
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  Speaker 3: a vegan or have a dish made for a vegan
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  Speaker 3: on premise. So a lot of them love coming and
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  Speaker 3: having lots of options, and we will still have lots
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  Speaker 3: of options.
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  Speaker 2: Kathy, you know we only wish you all the very
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  Speaker 2: best of luck. This is a terrible decision to have
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  Speaker 2: to take. You just hang in there, survive until twenty five.
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  Speaker 2: I think that's what everyone says. We all have to Yes,
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  Speaker 2: very good five twenty three. By the way, what meat
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  Speaker 2: is acceptable? Lime cork, fish and free range organic chicken.
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  Speaker 2: And yes, as it says, we are not carnivores, we
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  Speaker 2: are omnivores, and that's true as well.
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