How can I convince my workplace to offer a better vegan menu?

Question

I actually don't have many choices for my lunches since there aren't a lot of restaurants nearby, and none that has a vegan option.

My workplace, though, has a restaurant for takeaway. One drawback is that it serves a single vegan "meal": a raw vegetable sandwich.

Therefore, I wonder how can I convince my workplace to offer a better vegan menu, or at least more options?

The company I work for is international and is located near a big city. Its size is huge: it has many sites that could make it a city itself.
For communications, there is a kind of internal social network with pages of some departments and groups in addition to usual mail and instant messaging services.

Answer 1

• Get your co-workers' support. Are there other people at your workplace who would like to eat vegan, even just from time to time? If there are, enlist them to help you out. If not, try inviting them over to your place for awesome vegan food or out to a veg*n restaurant and see if you make any converts*
  _{(by convert I mean, person interested in sometimes eating vegan food)}

• If there are any feedback mechanisms currently in place to the people who provide food at your workplace, then use them and get all your supporters to do the same. Fill their suggestion box with requests for better vegan options on the menu.

• If you get the chance to discuss it, try multiple angles to persuade them the new items will sell. Point out that allergy sufferers, people trying to eat more healthily or lose weight may well be interested in vegan options as well as vegans.

• Vote with your pocket. Bring your own lunch from outside (make a big temporary effort to bring something made at home for a while), and tell the restaurant that you would love to eat there, their food is good, but it's just not suitable for you.

• Offer some ideas for menu items. If all they can come up with is a vegetable sandwich, they are probably not aware of how awesome vegan food can be. If you get a chance to discuss with them, hand over a few easy recipes/ideas for dishes that you'd like to see them make.

• If you're not making much headway getting major changes, look for easy targets and suggest small tweaks. For example, if there's a salad that would be vegan with vinaigrette instead of a creamy dressing, suggest they serve the dressings to add separately so you can make a choice. When they see more people choosing that option, hopefully it will give you a bit more leverage to push for further improvements

Answer 2

I know this is an issue most vegans will face sooner or later, but this isn't about veganism, honestly. It is purely about accommodating different needs.

Do you think they would be more understanding if you had coeliacs or some food allergy? If you don't want to be known as the straw vegan, you can argue that it's not about your beliefs, but about making the work environment friendlier and more pleasant to work at.

If it's a big office, then it is likely there are other veg*ns working there. Raising awareness would be a way to get their attention, since businesses like numbers. Maybe a friendly email signed by a few dozens of you will make them get the message without much discussion.

Always keep in mind this question: "what's in it for them"? Can they hop at several hype trains at the same time? Maybe vegan and gluten-free, or vegan and light/diet, or vegan and exotic, whatever floats their boat. Once they accept the first suggestion, it's bound to get easier from there on.

Don't push it too hard. Maybe they'll start offering 3 vegan options only on Fridays as an experiment. Don't get disappointed, take it as a win. Eat there, invite coworkers, give them feedback.

At school, it took us years before the cafeteria would offer vegetarian lunch options. Maybe we could have pushed it harder and got it sooner, but, then, we wouldn't be able to accomplish everything else we wanted: allergens started being listed on the menu, there were also vegetarian dinner (and dessert) options, every vegetarian dish was converted to vegan, and the cafeteria stays open for longer.