Almost half of UniCafe’s customers choose a vegan lunch – four simple reasons have driven this development

In October 2024, a record 47.8% of the lunches bought at UniCafe were vegan. In addition to our wonderful customers who are committed to making sustainable choices, this excellent result is due to our determined development work and our efforts to increase staff commitment. Another reason for this record-breaking result was the Choose Vegan campaign that we ran at UniCafes throughout October. During the campaign, all the restaurants offered two vegan options five days a week.

In the longer term, this is a systematic effort to gently nudge UniCafe customers towards sustainable choices. However, the change in eating habits has been slower than we expected when we stopped serving beef in 2020.

“We have identified four key factors that have contributed to our success: setting a clear target, continuous measurement and quick corrective action where necessary, developing and diversifying our menu, and encouraging all our employees to commit to the cause by ensuring that every vegan lunch sold increases their bonus for that year,” says Anne Immonen, Business Director of Ylva.

Taking steps towards a sustainable food revolution

In 2022, UniCafe carried out a carbon footprint analysis (in Finnish) covering all the ingredients used. The study showed that, in terms of climate, completely plant-based – that is, vegan – foods were a significantly better alternative than dairy-based vegetarian foods. Ingredient-wise, cheese proved to be particularly problematic in terms of emissions.

As a pioneer of sustainable nutrition, UniCafe has previously focused on increasing its sales of both vegan and vegetarian food, but as a result of its carbon footprint analysis, UniCafe decided to focus on increasing only the sales of vegan food.

To set realistic targets, a pilot was carried out at UniCafe Metsätalo, during which the number of vegan lunch options was doubled to two per day.

As a result of this trial, the sales share of vegan lunches rose to as much as 60%, while customer volume remained unchanged and customer satisfaction remained high.

Based on the pilot, the target for the share of vegan lunches across the chain was set at 42.5%, and from the start of 2023, all UniCafes started serving two vegan options two days a week.

In 2024, two vegan lunch options were served three days a week, and the target for 2025 is two vegan options five days a week.

Expanding availability has also required continuous product development. UniCafes have introduced easy, attractive alternatives and increased the number of dishes customers have particularly liked. The restaurants focus on variety to make sure that vegan foods offer not only simple, homely alternatives, but also options for hedonistic indulgence.

UniCafes have also made adjustments to products to make some vegan dishes more suitable for different diets, for example by replacing broad beans with a more easily digestible fermented product.

With a vegan diet, everyone wins

As well as climate impacts, UniCafe also considers the impact of its activities on nature in general. Ylva’s analysis of the environmental impact of its activities (in Finnish) showed that although the indicators of environmental impact are sometimes contradictory, UniCafe definitely has the right idea: vegan food has the potential to reduce human impact on nature. Biodiversity loss is multiplied in livestock production compared to growing grains or plant-based food because the land and fertilisers needed to grow feed are many times higher per kilogram of meat.

The largest footprint resulting from land use in UniCafe’s sourcing comes from the dairy and meat value chains. The impact would be significantly higher if UniCafe had not stopped serving beef (in Finnish) as of February 2020. Vegan choices are good not only for nature and climate, but also for our health. The new nutrition and food recommendations (In Finnish) published by the National Nutrition Council in November 2024 encourage people to further reduce their intake of meat. In 2025, UniCafe’s ever wider range of vegan foods makes it easier than ever to follow these recommendations.

Providing information and a gentle nudge

The carbon footprint of all meals sold at UniCafe is displayed on the menus both at the restaurants and online. The information on the carbon footprint is shown at the end of the list of ingredients for each dish.

In addition to this, the most climate-friendly main dish, side dish and beverage options are marked with a Climate Choice label along the restaurants’ customer path. The carbon footprint of a lunch consisting of options with the Climate Choice label is never more than 0.5 kg of CO2e per lunch. The Climate Choice limit is based on the WWF Sweden One Planet Plate concept, which has set a limit of 0.5 kg of CO2e per serving, in line with the 1.5°C scenario of the Paris Agreement.

We have also designed the order of the food served and our active communication in such a way that they encourage people to make smart choices. At UniCafe, the first thing on the menu and self-service counter is vegan food, followed by vegetarian options, then fish and finally meat. In addition to annual campaigns on vegan food and information provided on the UniCafe website, we remind customers of the benefits of vegan food through our social media channels.

Vegan food at UniCafe is also 10 cents cheaper than the other options. However, we have found low price to be an ineffective incentive and an expensive way to drive purchasing behaviour: it costs around €330 per tonne of CO2e saved.

For the sake of comparison, the 2023 guarantee of origin for zero-emission heat in Ylva’s property stock cost around €40 per tonne of CO2e, the low-carbon alternatives in the construction of Lyyra and Grand Hansa cost around €30 per tonne of CO2e, and the 2023 guarantee of origin for electricity from domestic wind power sources cost around €10 per tonne.

The share of vegan lunches only started to increase once we introduced other measures alongside them.

A sustainable food revolution cannot be achieved by the actions of a single company alone. UniCafe wants to set an example that encourages all actors in the sector, regardless of their starting point and environment, to increase the amount of vegan food they serve – there is an undeniable need for this, both for the planet and for the well-being of the individual.

UniCafe is a pioneer of sustainable eating

• In 2013, UniCafe produced a model for calculating the carbon footprint of its service production and applied it to its student restaurants for the first time.
• In 2014, UniCafe took part in the Climate Lunch project conducted by Agrifood Research Finland (MTT) in cooperation with WWF and a group of lunch restaurants. The project developed and tested the Climate Choice concept, and one of its objectives was to determine an upper limit for greenhouse gas emissions from Climate Choice lunches. UniCafe permanently adopted the label for its lunch menus at the beginning of 2015.
• In 2019, Ylva calculated the carbon footprint of its entire operation, and UniCafe’s first carbon budget was drawn up. The decision was made to stop serving beef at UniCafes.
• At the beginning of February 2020, all UniCafe restaurants stopped serving beef.
• In 2021, calculating the carbon footprint of meals was piloted at UniCafe Kaivopiha as part of the Climate Meal campaign organised in November that year.
• In 2022, UniCafe conducted a carbon footprint analysis of all its ingredients, which means that its carbon budget can be calculated more accurately than ever before both now and in the future.
• In 2024, Ylva carried out an assessment of its impact on nature.
• In 2024, UniCafes started serving Finnish oats, instead of rice, twice a week.

More Information:

Anne Immonen
Business Director, restaurants
+358 40 512 5008
anne.immonen@ylva.fi