Many MindedRestaurant certifier asks for written plan to put 30% plant-based dishes on menus
The UK-based Sustainable Restaurant Association has issued a 2027 edition of its Food Made Good standard, which certifies more than 15,000 hotels, restaurants and foodservice businesses worldwide. The update adds criteria on plant-based and animal protein sourcing. Full rollout is set for January 2027.
The headline change is a 30% plant-based target for menu items. In practice, applicants must confirm whether they have a written, time-bound policy to make at least 30% of their menus fully plant-based. That is a policy check, not an immediate requirement that three in ten dishes change. The standard also tightens animal-protein rules: seafood from producers meeting the Model Seafood Welfare Standard, poultry meeting the Better Chicken Commitment, cage-free eggs and crate-free pork.
The SRA's reasoning is about where emissions sit. It says food procurement makes up 80-95% of a restaurant's scope 3 emissions, and animal-derived ingredients account for 70% of those sourcing emissions. It also cites a typical hotel meal as producing three times the emissions of a home-cooked equivalent. The article gives no underlying studies for these figures.
Why it matters for abundance: certification is a lever on purchasing at scale. When a large network of venues plans toward more plant-based menus, demand for lower-input protein grows, and healthier, lower-footprint food becomes a more ordinary default rather than a niche option. The same 30% threshold now appears in the World Sustainability Organization's Friend of the Earth and Friend of the Sea schemes and in a Global Sustainable Tourism Council benchmark, so the signal is converging.
Watch for how many businesses adopt real policies, and whether menus actually change. The GSTC benchmark opens to applications in about two years, and its criteria for hotel restaurants remain unclear.
Source: Green Queen