The Future Of Plant-Based Meat Is At The Bodega
The bodega is the ultimate New York institution. Where else can you buy a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich, deodorant, and a single popsicle at 3 a.m. while talking to the clerk about baseball? New York’s bodegas aren’t just corner stores; they're 13,000 beating hearts fueling a city of over eight million people.
When the pandemic brought the city to a halt in 2020, bodegas were our lifeline. Restaurants were closed, but bodegas were essential businesses supplying us with chopped cheeses, iced coffee, and toilet paper at all hours of the day.
But these stores are not known for offering an abundance of plant-based food options. Vegan BEC sandwiches could surely be a New York staple if more bodegas sold them. And more broadly, people tend to criticize plant-based meat of all kinds for being unaffordable and inaccessible to many people.
This got entrepreneur and New Yorker Nil Zacharias thinking. He wanted to start a plant-based brand that would meet people where they were—at the bodega. So in 2021 he launched Plantega, the first-ever supplier of plant-based meats for convenience stores.
Plantega works with bodegas to make vegan versions of classic sandwiches. They train the cooks and supply all the signage and menus and order the ingredients. The stores are then put on delivery apps under the Plantega name. Bodegas keep all profits from in-store orders and share a cut of delivery orders with Plantega.
By the end of 2021, Plantega was in 14 locations. Three years later, they’re in 64.
For most of these stores, the Plantega menu makes up about 20 to 25 percent of sales, and on the weekends it's 60 percent for some locations. Plantega orders really take off late at night when there aren’t as many vegan options available. Among the top sellers are the Chopped Cheese, the Bacon or Sausage, Egg & Cheese, the Spicy Breakfast Burrito, and the Chicken Tender Sub.
Plant-Based Needs to Be More Accessible
I’m passionate about sustainability and try to incorporate vegetarian meals in my diet, but I’m also a carnivore who’s a little skeptical of plant-based meat alternatives. While my reasons have always leaned on avoiding processed foods, I have to admit, much of my diet—like my cherished bacon, egg, and cheese—is highly processed anyway. So I don't really have an argument for not trying vegan alternatives. Especially considering they might also be better for the environment.
I met Zacharias at Hungry & Healthy Marketplace, a bodega on Manhattan’s Upper West Side that offers a Plantega menu. I scanned the offerings and decided on the Spicy Breakfast Burrito and the classic Bacon, Egg & Cheese.
The breakfast burrito is the perfect starter for a skeptic. The Abbot’s Butcher Chorizo isn’t the star, but rather a complement to the Zero Egg, hashbrown, WayFare Nacho Cheddar, spinach, onion, and avocado. It was honestly excellent, and I kept going back for more.
Now, onto the vegan bacon, egg, and cheese. Real bacon is the true essence of a BEC. Vegan eggs and cheese might be passable, but bacon? Made primarily of chickpeas and seaweed, the vegan Umaro bacon Plantega uses looks surprisingly similar to the real thing.
Umaro Foods, like many of the brands Plantega works with, is a small company. Unlike Impossible and Beyond Meat, you won’t find Umaro at your grocery store yet. It can be difficult for small brands to break into new markets if they don’t have a distributor and track record to back it up. But tell them you’re in 64 locations across New York City? That’s a different story.
While brands pay a small fee to get on the Plantega menu, they’re also earning revenue and gaining visibility. “We've helped new brands break into the New York City market because of that,” said Zacharias. “But more importantly, I think the bigger added value is that we are integrating their products in an iconic, culturally relevant way in bodegas.”
Will I continue to eat my highly-processed bacon at breakfast? Yes, of course. But will I also order its Plantega equivalent? Absolutely.
“Even if everyone starts eating this, I don’t think that the regular bacon, egg, and cheese is going away anytime soon,” Zacharias told me. That’s not Plantega’s mission. The goal isn’t necessarily for consumers to order a Plantega sandwich in an act of valiance for the environment and their health—although that’s great—but to simply order the sandwich and enjoy it.
“If the food doesn’t pass the taste test, no one cares if we’re saving the world,” he said.
The G-Word
Some people might be wary of the Plantega signs popping up in their neighborhood.
“Some people say, ‘Oh, this is gentrification. You're coming in and bringing in plant-based options,’” said Zacharias. “And that's because of the general narrative around plant-based foods.”
That argument might be more true if Plantega were to open a bodega across the street and called it the Plant-Based Bodega. But for Zacharias, his company is all about empowering and honoring the New York City institution and breaking down the barriers for people to try plant-based foods.
While Plantega’s customers skew younger, some of their most popular stores aren’t in the city’s hip, thoroughly gentrified neighborhoods, but rather in Washington Heights and Jamaica, Queens.
Plantega sandwiches have a slightly higher price point than their meaty counterparts. But keep in mind that meat and eggs at the bodega are highly subsidized, according to Zacharias, while plant-based foods are not.
“There are no incentives from the U.S. government for producing plant-based foods. So you're kind of fighting an uphill battle to begin with,” Zacharias said.
If a bodega cheeseburger costs $6, the Plantega version might set you back $10.
Zacharias has found that most people buying Plantega sandwiches aren’t vegan or vegetarian; they’re just curious. It’s the nudging, the vegan menu items just being there, that makes you want to try them.
Plantega Beyond the Bodega
While New York's bodegas will always be the foundation and inspiration of the company, Zacharias is thinking about how he can expand Plantega outside the city. One idea is to build standalone stores. Another is plugging the Plantega model into college cafeterias.
“In New York City, when you can get anything anytime, anywhere, bodega food survives because it’s the only food that matches the rhythm of the city because it moves so fast,” he said. “And there’s something to that. That is the essence of New York City. Can we embody that?”
A bigger goal here is, of course, fighting climate change, which will require massive coordinated policies shifts in addition to a lot of Plantega sandwiches. And Zacharias’ mission is shifting food culture while still honoring it and empowering individuals to make their own choices.
“In the end, food has to be indulgent and have a great story, and fit into our culture, and everything else. But the damage that it’s causing shouldn’t be the consumer’s problem to solve," he said.
But if millions of people wake up and decide to order a vegan Spicy Breakfast Burrito simply because it’s good, now that could make a sustainable impact.
Plantega’s not setting out to save the world, but it just might be helping—one bacon, egg, and cheese at a time.
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