"MY wife Denise has been a vegetarian for 33 years, so I'm very aware of the needs of vegetarians," says Feargal Quinn of Superquinn. "In the last 10 years there has been a significant increase in the number of our customers who are vegetarian. We find from our customer panels that in every group of 12 to 15 people, at least one or two have a vegetarian in the family. This seems to be the new trend: a rise in the number of individual vegetarians, rather than in vegetarian households. The result is that the family does not sit down in front of a big joint any more. Each different member of the family might be eating a different meal."
The growing number of vegetarian customers in Superquinn has meant an increased demand for a wider variety of vegetables, and for more exotic strains of fruit, like mangoes and papayas.
Meanwhile in Marks and Spencer on Mary Street in Dublin, there was a noticeable change about five years ago, when people started to look for a wider variety of fruit and vegetables. "We didn't stock much baby sweetcorn or mange tout, but now there is a real demand for this kind of thing," says manager John Dorrington. The wide selection of prepared vegetarian meals at Marks and Spencer has evolved in response to the growing demand.
At Here Today, the 21 year old greengrocer shop on South Anne Street in Dublin, people are looking for a wider range of lettuces from lamb's leaf to oak leaf and mushrooms; also beans; and for the first time, there is a significant demand for courgettes. Broccoli, once seen as an exotic vegetable, is now considered fairly ordinary, says proprietor Declan Tiernan.
Declan also supplies restaurants, and notices a big increase in consumption in that area: "Twenty years ago, fruit and vegetables would have represented only 10 to 15 per cent of a restaurant's overall bill. Now they are sometimes spending more on fruit and vegetables than on meat."
Experimenting with ways of cooking vegetables is now de rigueur for dinner parties at home, while relying on a roast is seen as "lazy and unhealthy Declan concludes.