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