Made from a blend of kale, red lentils, carrots, and ginger, and served on a soft bun slathered in sweet and spicy mustard, pickled red cabbage, and crispy onions, the vegan dog (the bun makes it just vegetarian) is designed in part to appeal to a growing number of customers who want to eat healthier and plant-based food. But it’s also part of Ikea’s much larger ambition to cut its carbon footprint.
Ikea’s first foray into plant-based food was a veggie meatball designed to compete with its iconic Swedish meatballs. The veggie balls, first offered in 2015, now make up 15% of the company’s overall meatball sales. The veggie hot dog was first tested in a Swedish store earlier this year, then expanded to other stores in Europe this summer. In the first two months, the company sold 1 million veggie dogs. The product launched in American stores in late September; in the first two weeks, one out every 10 customers to buy a hot dog in U.S. stores is choosing the vegan version.
The company experimented with various recipes and landed on a version that doesn’t look or taste like an imitation of a beef hot dog. “We made the choice to develop a really honest product,” they say. “Food should be what it is. You should be able to see as a customer what you are eating, and therefore we made the choice to really develop it from vegetables.” The crispy onions, added as a topping, give “a little bit of snap to the dog” that would normally come from the texture of a sausage casing.
