Zoos offer healthier and more sustainable: no more meat croquettes, but vegetarian burgers | Cooking & Eating

You can do a day at the zoo all year round. Ouwehands Zoo in Rhenen even opens the gates in the evening in winter. And then what do you eat? Take the Royal Burgers’ Zoo animal park. The newly renovated Bush Restaurant is located in the covered tropical rainforest. Visitors can taste all kinds of new dishes there, explains Addie Roelofsen, creator and developer of catering concepts for Burgers’ Zoo, among others.

,,We looked at what is possible with the continent where the restaurant is ‘located’, Asia. For example, we wanted to try whether the rice table was a hit with visitors.”

According to Roelofsen, the Asian menu fits well with the animal park, where the Indian market Pasar Malam was organized in winter for ten years. But if you go to the zoo for a day, you may not have the time to eat an entire rice table. Roelofsen: ,,Especially the visitors with a subscription have that space to sit down and enjoy it. We want to trigger that target group to order a rice table in the afternoon.”

Burgers’ Zoo in Arnhem deviates with the Asian bites from the standard image of the unhealthy and greasy bite during a day at the zoo. But Roelofsen knows that such a new menu is not going to be the crowd puller. “A rice table, poké bowl and gado gado are not the things you use to attract people to the zoo. But that doesn’t mean you only have to serve pancakes and chips.”

The zoo has set itself the goal of encouraging visitors to eat healthier, but above all more consciously. To make the world a little better. Roelofsen: ,,We like to work with honest products that have a good origin and are simply of good quality. We first make a choice based on quality and sustainability, then we look at the price.”

That’s how Blijdorp Zoo in Rotterdam is tackling it, says Michel Koks, Operational Manager for Visitors and Events. The zoo listens to the needs of the visitors, but wants to encourage them to make healthier and more animal-friendly choices. “A zoo is of course the ideal place to serve vegetarian or animal-friendly products.”

That is why there are many vegetarian options on the menu in the restaurants of Blijdorp. Koks: ,,We want the first choice of visitors to be a vegetarian choice. If they do want meat, they are served meat with an eye for animal welfare.”

Blijdorp is a forerunner in according to Koks. When he came to work there nine years ago, it was mainly meat that struck the clock. “We now no longer sell meat croquettes at all, for example, only the vega croquette. You really don’t hear anyone about that, because it’s just really tasty.”

According to Koks, the vegetarian filet americain sandwiches and the vegetarian crispy chicken burger are the most popular. ,,The pancake and the fries are of course still popular. But you do notice that more and more people are making sustainable and healthy choices. That makes it attractive for us to go further and further into this.”

Consciously or not, Roelofsen still finds it difficult to estimate whether the new menu in the Bush Restaurant will indeed appeal to visitors. ,,We just want to try it and test the dishes for a long time. In any case, we know that dishes sell when people recognize products, so we give it a twist, such as a spicy chicken salad. These kinds of things now work better than a cheese and ham sandwich.”

Roelofsen sees that the young audience also eats more and more varied. “You see less and less children’s menus on the menu. Children’s tastes are better developed, they eat more internationally.” In addition, the zoo also makes its own choices in what they offer young visitors. “We don’t just serve what the public wants. If we did, you could buy those popular sugary iced drinks from us. But we don’t feel good about that. There are suppliers who recommend these kinds of products because you can increase your turnover considerably with them, but we don’t do it.”

That does not mean that there are no longer any chips for the kids, or a pancake with decorations. The same goes for Blijdorp. Koks says that they are willing to accommodate the visitors. But in the meantime, they continue to excite the guests. “There are always people who say they prefer meat and don’t try the vegetarian version. They only say that because they think vegetarian is not good. We encourage them to try it anyway, if they don’t like it they get their money back. Then we never see them back at the checkout.”

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