Just 12 months after announcing it was experimenting with “innovative” vegan ingredients, like a rather sinister-sounding “lookalike solid egg substitute” and fake meat from California-based Beyond Meat, the Dubai-based airline Emirates now says it’s taking a “back to basics” approach to vegan cuisine.
Doxis Bekris, the mega-airline’s Vice President of Food & Beverage Design, says the carrier is turning away from ultra-processed meat and protein alternatives, and doesn’t want to replicate meat with plant-based substitutes in its vegan dishes.
“Our focus now is on legumes, grains, nuts, seeds, and seasonal vegetables as the heroes of the plate. These ingredients offer natural depth of flavour, texture, and nutrition without relying on ultra-processed alternatives,” Bekris explained.
“We want to draw from cuisines that have always been plant-forward, like Mediterranean mezze, Levantine grain salads, Asian noodle bowls, and African stews. In our view this approach feels genuine and culturally rich.”
Emirates had a very different approach to its vegan menus at the start of 2025 when it boasted that its chefs were ‘experimenting’ with the latest innovative vegan ingredients on the market at its Emirates Flight Catering Concept Development Kitchen.
At the time, Emirates included plant-based proteins from Beyond Meat in its menus. The California-based company is famous for creating plant-based burgers, mince, sausages, and meatballs that are designed to look, taste, and have the same texture as real meat.
Emirates now says, however, it no longer wants to replace typical proteins with engineered plant-based meats and substitutes. Work to replace its vegan menus with dishes that “celebrate real, whole, and farm-to-fork plant foods” could, however, take some time.
The airline currently has a mammoth 488 vegan recipes in rotation across 140 worldwide destinations – a marked increase of 60% in just the last two years. As a result, Emirates currently estimates that its new vegan catering concept won’t start rolling out until the start of 2027.
The announcement comes as Emirates celebrates ‘Veganuary,’ although it is not just January that sees passengers pre-ordering vegan meals. In 2025, Emirates served more than half a million vegan meals (100,000 more than it served in 2024), and that number is set to rise over the coming years.
Given Emirates’ impressive daily schedule to the UK, it’s perhaps not surprising that London remains the number 1 destination for passengers to order a vegan meal, closely followed by Sydney, Bangkok, Melbourne, and Frankfurt.
Other top destinations for vegan meal pre-orders include Manchester, Mumbai, Bali, and Singapore.
Emirates doesn’t just think the rise in vegan meal pre-orders is being solely driven by passengers who lead a plant-based lifestyle. The airline also attributes the rise in demand to non-vegan passengers who simply want to enjoy a lighter and more wholesome meal on ultra-long-haul flights.
Despite the impressive growth in the number of passengers asking for vegan meals, the airline doesn’t always routinely offer vegan dishes as part of its standard meal offering. Instead, passengers should pre-order a vegan meal at least 24 hours before departure.
The only exception to this is on some high-demand routes where vegan meals form part of the standard menu.
