How to make a vegan lifestyle easy and convenient for all

[Music]

the planet

is dying temperatures are changing sea

levels are rising there’s deforestation

overpopulation

it’s also no secret that in spite of the

population being at an all-time high

there’s more deaths from dread disease

than ever before

you can’t shop anywhere without

supporting a mass franchise you need to

carry around a steel straw you can’t use

plastic straws you should

drive an electric car not a petrol car

you should have your own veggies because

even organic isn’t good anymore this

it’s got to be biodynamic veggies you

can’t

you know you should eat bread because

bread is bad for you don’t eat cereal

make sure that your

meals are high fat no no they must be

low fat make sure that they’re low carb

as well

but actually carbs are back in now

basically

we’re all [ __ ]

but who really cares right hands up

who’s got an electric car

not me neither um how many of you guys

recycle at home okay that’s cool better

how many of you support mass producing

franchises like mcdonald’s or woolworths

it’s not mcdonald’s for me

[Music]

um okay how about how about your health

let’s talk about that

how many of you guys eat a pretty

healthy mostly veggies whole foods diet

yeah looking good how about exercising

three times a week yeah still good

okay now we’re gonna get to the bad part

how many of you sleep for eight hours a

day

okay it’s really great good for you guys

um and maybe maybe you’ll

stumble here like me how many of you

work less than 45 hours a week

okay well but no one else you’re on your

own man

all right so yeah we’re in um

we’re in dire straits here and i’m the

same

i don’t drive an electric car i don’t

solar power my house

i also go to woolies um even the other

day i watched this beautiful episode

on netflix i know if you guys have seen

our planet

our planet is one of the latest

documentaries that really really

beautifully illustrates the damaging

effects of climate change

this particular episode was about the

walruses who usually migrate to the

polar ice caps

and they couldn’t because there’s very

very few ice caps left and especially in

that region

so they ended up migrating to these kind

of sand banks sandy cliffs and

because they’re not built for it they

ended up climbing too high and a lot of

them

fell down to like a really devastating

and bloody death and it was

i mean i cried my eyes out but

come dinner time i went to woolworths

and bought

a ready meal and heated it up in the

microwave

and threw away the single-use plastic

container

at least my meal was vegan right i don’t

know

um so let’s talk about the inconvenient

truth

there’s been a massive shift towards a

plant-based

diet plant-based lifestyle sustainable

lifestyle across the world i mean

the the google search trends over the

past year show

a 90 increase in the term vegan

people just want to know what it is like

what are we dealing with what should we

do

even the plant-based food sales in the

uk are up a thousand

five hundred percent that’s a thousand

five hundred percent in a year that’s

insane

um so yeah

locally woodley’s has plant-based food

now check this out the simple truth

range everyone’s kind of moving this way

but why so the animal agriculture

industry

contributes to 18 of the global

greenhouse gases

it doesn’t sound like a lot but that is

the same amount as the

entire transport industry planes

boats trucks motorbikes cars

all of it it’s the same as that as that

just the animal agriculture industry not

food

the 70 of the agricultural land is

dedicated to animal farming only

60 of our household waste is food

packaging

just the packaging that we’re getting

off-rooted is contributing to 60 of

my waste in my house and i’m sure you

guys have heard the water stats i don’t

know if you

have but i’m going to say them again it

takes 15 000 liters of water

to produce one kilogram of beef

one kilogram will be that’s that’s 3 000

toilet flushes

put dinner on the table for a family of

four

but maybe the planet isn’t a close

enough to home motivator

what about your own health obviously

there’s many many books and many many

resources and documentaries out there

and i’m not going to go too deep into

why animal products are really bad for

your health but

the long and short of it is the

saturated fats

in animal products and meat and dairy

are

linked to higher cause of heart disease

cancer strokes diabetes astral

so has anyone here seen game changes

now a couple of years for those of you

who don’t know it’s one of the

latest buzz documentaries on netflix

it’s sky goes around showcasing

our over over performing or

outperforming athletes these

triathletes special ops guys strong men

um and all of them are following a vegan

diet so they’re they’re showcasing this

amazing

performance on a plant-based diet and

the the documentary is amazing it’s like

okay

[ __ ] he can do that on that diet and

he’s not worried about where he’s

getting his protein from

surely i’ll be okay so yeah

that’s um food is food is medicine

can be can be poison as well and i think

it’s really important to know that

we’re mostly consuming highly processed

foods

and a lot of those processed foods

include animals

so if we’re looking at all of the diets

in the world

and there’s many and it’s very confusing

vegan keto paleo dancing now we’re

vegetarians like i said earlier it’s

like high fat low fat high cough

low carb whatever with no cob

but if you eliminate all the fluff of

the fuzz the the golden thread is

don’t eat process [ __ ] make sure that

you’re filling your plate

with a rainbow of vegetables and don’t

eat

too much it’s it’s pretty simple and i

don’t think

a lot of people will argue with that

premise and if that’s kind of what we’re

basing it on

a plant-based diet doesn’t even mean you

need to be vegan

just try and like make the base the most

of it

so where does that leave us

basically we can’t eat anything do

anything go anywhere

buy anything without harming ourselves

or the planet

great so that’s kind of how the idea of

lexi started

um it’s a small way to make a

plant-based sustainable lifestyle

a little bit more accessible to people

for those of you who don’t know

lexis is a plant-based restaurant group

we have

mostly mostly vegan menu very strong

focus on sustainability

and um yeah we’ve got three branches now

a little very short synopsis on how i

got here

tattoo mentioned earlier that i studied

yeah study design i worked in marketing

i had a food blog on the side which for

anyone that knows me

would say it’s completely ridiculous

because i couldn’t cook when i left home

at all to follow my mum

um and yeah we

uh i started a food blog got a little

bit of work through that

food styling turned into catering turned

into a food stall turned into a pop-up

restaurant and then

here we are i guess my business partner

and i opened the first lexi’s in june

2018

and we opened up another two since then

i’m

very proud to say that we also employ

about 60 people

so it’s a really like the business is

growing quite a lot

which is great so how are we sustainable

like i said earlier takes a lot of water

to produce beef

so for every person that comes through

the restaurant door that chooses to eat

a beetroot falafel wrap instead of a

steak

or a beef burger or whatever we are

saving 400

000 liters of water that is

on average we we average about 500

people across the

three restaurants every day so that’s an

olympic sized

swimming pool of water that we save

every day

just with that like little little meal

choice

we also try and keep all of our products

as earth-friendly

as biodegradable as possible we use

biodegradable packaging

we have a lot of local suppliers we try

and exhaust the food waste in the

kitchen by using off-patents and sources

and stocks and pestos and stuff like

that

but what really makes us different

why do you think it is that we’ve opened

up three restaurants in about a year

and why we get a whole bunch of

non-vegans because probably about 10

of my customers are actually vegan to

come through the door and choose to eat

veggies

and then come back and eat more veggies

and i think i think it’s got more to do

with i mean i’d love to say that it’s

just the food

i would because i’m like i’m a chef so

it would be great but i think it’s more

than that i think it’s

it’s the idea the idea that we can make

a difference

that everyone can actually add value and

like make a difference to what’s going

on in the world

but an idea isn’t enough it’s not enough

to just be like you should

be better you need to make it easy for

people you need to bring it down to

planet earth

and make it like the simplest easiest

choice that people can make

and i think at lexi’s one of the things

is

that’s yeah that’s been kind of a big

focus is to make it accessible to people

because shifting mindsets eating habits

and

perceptions is about incremental changes

and small steps no one’s gonna

i stood in my office once three or four

years ago and i remember standing before

i will never be vegan ever

and now like i’m in a vegan restaurant

it’s ridiculous but it’s because there

were all these little baby steps along

the way

so so lexi in particular one of the

things that i think is really important

if you’re doing anything and you want an

effective change is to be

inviting and enticing and lexington’s

got bright yellow branding the doors

are bright there’s lots of color we’ve

got lots of plants there’s not a lot of

people that i know that would be like i

don’t want to go there that looks

terrible

it’s also quite familiar i think if

you’re trying to appeal to the masses

having incense burning at the door next

to a laughing butter although maybe i

have that stuff at home

or like salt crystals is it’s not always

familiar to everybody it’s not

accessible to everybody

and in isolation those things might be

interesting

or people people might be open to that

kind of thing but it’s if you think

about it like an online sales funnel

the less buttons you have to click and

the less pages you have to get to the

more likely you are to actually put in

your credit card details at the end

and it’s the same here we we don’t want

to have all these mental challenges for

people to get over

you don’t want people to be like oh okay

it smells weird in here

okay like i don’t know what that is on

the wall okay

so you gotta like if you’re making it

easier and accessible for people

it’s better um i actually remember i

took my mom to

my favorite vegan restaurant in jorgo a

couple years ago

she was so irritated she couldn’t have a

dairy cappuccino she could have milk in

her cappuccino she just wanted milk

dairy milk didn’t have the almond milk

macadamia whatever

they were like no sorry no yeah and also

the

decor was like quite floral and strange

like lots of little

symbols and stuff that she didn’t

understand and didn’t know about and

yeah at the end of the day she’s like

i’m not coming back here i’m not gonna

come back to this weird vegan place

because it’s just too it’s too much for

me like and that’s the thing

what i try to focus on with my

restaurant is i made it

somewhere that my mom would want to go

you know somewhere that should be like

cool it’s fine i have dairy with my

cappuccino in the morning

and there’s a plant and everything is

nice and i feel comfortable but maybe

i’ll have a vegan meal

instead of a non-vegan meal and that’s

like that’s a win

instagramable is a real quality like

welcome to 2020 guys honestly

like most of our customers come through

word of mouth

and when i say word of mouth i mean

instagram stories someone posted

something about late season and someone

saw it

in their camera like we saw you on

instagram you came to

check it out because it’s you know it

looks really nice so

being trendy having things that are

selfie worthy

in this kind of space especially in this

kind of industry it’s important and it’s

it really makes it it grows it a lot

quicker

so together all of these things make it

easy for people to sit down

and sitting down is the hardest part

once i’ve got someone to sit down

you ever been to a restaurant how

awkward it is when you need to like get

up and leave if you’ve already sat down

sitting down and that’s the trick

but even then to avoid further

discomfort or have anyone grow like oh

there’s nothing for me to eat i don’t

know what quinoa is i don’t know what

this is

i added a beef program some fish to the

menu so now no matter who sits down

there’s something something that’s

familiar at least maybe they want

chicken but

they’re like okay a beef works fine i’ll

settle for that and maybe the next time

they come back they have something

different and then

that’s already evolving the change

process has started

so now it’s down to the food

whatever people choose i try and make

sure that it’s all delicious

and presented ready for the ground of

course

i guess that’s that’s kind of the thing

and that’s why

we’re really proud to have three

restaurants already it’s

kind of easy it’s like easy for people

it’s easy for people to come in and make

a better choice

it’s easy for people to come and be like

okay cool maybe today i’ll try something

different i’ll try this and i’ll try

that meal

and then and then we’re winning steps

forward it’s great

but don’t get me wrong

we do not win every battle most of my

veg

coming from city deep markets comes

wrapped in plastic

we import our milk and a lot of our

health drinks

um because there’s just no one doing it

in south africa yet

and yeah like i said organic isn’t even

okay anymore now it needs to be

biodynamic so your veggies are like

everything is a disaster

like a pla plastic is supposed to be

biodegradable but actually it’s already

vitamin

special compartment of a certain

humidity and a certain temperature

so actually yeah we’re still

everything is still a disaster but

we’ve really made an impact in the

greater war we might not win every

little battle

but if if we’re fighting a wall we’ve

taken steps forward

you know steps forward are all that we

we need to do

so what about you guys i’m talking about

spoken a lot about what i’m doing and

how um how i think it’s being positive

but

like at the end of the day doesn’t

matter to you guys what

what like where does that leave you

i think one of the biggest things is

to not think that whatever you’re doing

is insignificant

incremental change is the key

even the twitter france cyclists started

on training wheels

just like all of us now they’re like

world champs racing around

on their little bicycles and um

yeah i think you might not drive an

electric car

or have a solar-powered house but even

carrying around a fabric shopping bag or

a steel straw

is a step even eating a plant-based meal

once a week is a step that’s thousands

of liters of water saved

just by one meal one of my friends said

to me when i first went vegan

don’t let perfect get in the way of good

enough

and it stuck with me for a long time but

it took me a really long time to figure

out what that means for me

and for me it means i’m not actually

vegan anymore

i eat eggs sometimes and chocolate

croissants

i follow a 95 plant-based diet but

it’s imperfect but it’s still making an

impact

and that’s yeah that was the thing about

lacey’s we wanted to create

this beautiful space an imperfect space

for where people can actually sit and

make

better choices so i guess it comes down

to

what you can do right now you know every

step is a step like

it is a significant change if everybody

were to make one little small step

i mean really together we can change the

world