Introducing a new vegan hospitality management course

Are you a hospitality professional looking to build on your knowledge of vegan menu development and guest services?

Ready to bring fresh ideas to your current place of employment, or to boost your resume to land your dream job?

Need to get organized with service to your vegan, vegetarian, and flexitarian guests before the end of the year, in preparation for the next holiday season and beyond?

Want to be able to promote that you or your staff are vegan trained and certified to attract the next generation of customers?

If you answered YES to any of these questions, then keep reading because you will be excited to learn that we just launched a game changing certification program! Introducing…the world’s first Vegan Hospitality Management Certification.

The Vegan Hospitality Management Certification Program is a fully remote 16-week course designed for hospitality professionals such as business owners, managers, and senior and junior chefs working in non-vegan, vegan, and vegan friendly businesses anywhere in the world. The course content is developed and delivered by our CEO Meredith Marin (based in the U.S.) and our COO Hayley Cooper (based in South Africa).

This certification program is designed to fit into the busy hospitality professional’s schedule, giving you space in between lessons to implement what you have learned, as well as to receive useful feedback. The program includes a blend of live small group virtual training sessions conducted via Zoom, executive coaching, and pre-recorded content. You will also receive access to numerous useful resources, including templates, checklists, and guides!

We are currently accepting applications for our first cohort, which will run from late-August through mid-December.

 

The Vegan Hospitality Management Certification is the first program of its kind, worldwide!

Why take this course and get certified?

Learning how to create, serve, and promote quality vegan friendly menu offerings is essential to staying competitive in the modern market. It’s so important, that we’ve built a whole business around it! With nearly 100 consultants in over 20 countries, we love helping restaurants, hotels, and other hospitality businesses achieve success in tapping into the vegan market; however, we understand that some professionals prefer a more “DIY” option.

Consider this your in between — you won’t have a consultant doing all the work for you, but you won’t be doing it on your own — you’ll learn the skills and access the tools you need to become proficient at vegan friendly menu planning and guest services, so that you can make sure your current or future workplace is attracting and successfully accommodating vegan and plant forward guests. This process allows you to have full creative ownership over your menu development and staff training protocols and positions you to be able to implement changes year after year without continued support.

Wondering if this course is for you?

This course is for you if you’re eager to:

  • become known for your innovation in plant based cuisine
  • serve the most “difficult” customers with ease
  • start attracting more loyal customers who trust that you understand their needs
  • receive consistent 5 star reviews and referrals

And maybe…

  • you own a small business and you don’t have the budget to hire a consultant right now
  • or you are an experienced chef that would like plant based ingredient coaching and a vegan community to tap into for feedback, but not someone to develop full recipes for your business
  • or you are a chef who is transitioning to apply for more plant forward jobs and a professional qualification would boost your options
  • or you’re part of a new restaurant, hotel or resort startup and want to be prepared to include vegan guests from the start
  • or you simply value professional development and know that vegan hospitality management is the next big thing!

Through this certification program, you’ll learn the best tips, strategies, and secrets to successfully serving the modern consumer, while receiving support, feedback, and a step by step blueprint so that you’re not starting from scratch or making costly mistakes.

The program curriculum teaches you everything from creating a vegan friendly menu to kitchen safety for vegan friendly service, managing guest expectations and marketing to the vegan community, building a loyal plant forward customer base and so much more.

Curriculum highlights:

Module 1: Vegan Hospitality Management Framework – Understanding industry trends, evaluating and auditing your current service to plant forward customers, determining values-based metrics, key action steps to set yourself up for successful certification

Module 2: Plant Based & Vegan Cuisine – A focus on ingredients and nutrition, best practices for creating plant based dishes, reading ingredients labels, comprehensive guide to processed ingredients, how to make plant based ingredient swaps in cooking and baking, effectively communicating with suppliers about vegan friendly products

Module 3: The Vegan Friendly Menu – Through creating a new menu or working with your current menu, we will be extensively workshopping effective menu design, including detailed case studies of non-vegan restaurants that implemented successful vegan offerings

Module 4: Menu Workshopping – Continue to workshop your menu, including understanding how to conduct a thorough menu evaluation, modify and develop new vegan friendly recipes, structure back of house flow to accommodate more plant based ingredients, menu writing and labeling

Module 5: The Drinks Menu – Identify vegan and non-vegan friendly drinks, learn about non-vegan ingredients in drinks as well as in the processing and fining of products, writing and labeling vegan friendly drinks menus, including wine, beer, cocktails and mocktails, juices and more

Module 6: Back of House – Kitchen safety for vegan friendly service, allergies and inclusivity

Module 7: Front of House – Vegan customer service, managing guest expectations, upselling high profit items, getting customer feedback and 5 star reviews

Module 8: Marketing & Promotion – Launching new menu items, marketing to the vegan community and building a loyal plant forward customer base, utilizing marketing tools such as social media, email, hashtags, influencer partnerships, the most effective language to speak to your vegan guests, understanding and overcoming the veto vote

and more! We have some exciting bonuses planned, including tips for your holiday menus, kids menu, as well as strategies and templates for training other relevant departments and staff such as housekeeping, front desk, and safari lodge field guides

Tuition: Tuition for this 4 month training and certification program is $1997 USD and monthly interest-free payment plans (of up to 6 months) are available. We offer partial needs-based scholarships for applicants from Africa and Latin American countries because we value fair currency exchange. Please note on your application whether you would be interested in a scholarship.

If you would like to be considered for an interview, please apply below. Please note that your application is not a commitment to join the program. It is an opportunity for our team to learn more about your needs, interests, and experiences, and for you to ask any questions. Specific program dates/time commitment will be discussed during the interview process. We will potentially have various groups/times to accommodate different time zones.

Our team will contact you within 48 hours of receiving your application.

Apply here by clicking this link

 

Meet your instructors

Meredith Marin

Meredith is the founder and CEO of Vegan Hospitality. She has trained hundreds of hospitality professionals from restaurants to resorts to serve vegan guests with excellence and ease. In additional to her restaurant and hotel consulting experience, Meredith is a seasoned presenter. She has taught several university level courses, and she also leads our Vegan Hospitality Consultant Training Program which is currently on its 12th cohort with a 100% graduation rate.

Hayley Cooper

Hayley is the COO of Vegan Hospitality. She is an industry leader with 23 years of professional experience in hospitality management. In addition to vegan hospitality consulting, Hayley co-manages a 5 star safari lodge in South Africa and is the founder and CEO of Wild Dreams, a successful hospitality recruitment firm in South Africa, and the first firm to offer vegan recruitment services. Hayley loves speaking to audiences of all sizes both in person and on zoom, and she is known for overdelivering on value for her clients and students.