Vegan pizza is coming to Pizza Hut Australia, the chain announced on its Facebook page yesterday.
The company said the pizzas with vegan cheese are available now, for a limited time only at select locations in New South Wales: the Waterloo and Marsden Park stores. A company representative told customers the cheese being used is from the Australia-based brand Dairy Free Down-Under. And that “the plan” is to add the vegan pizza options to “all” Australian locations if the trial is successful.
The move is likely spurred by the recent success rival Domino’s has had with its vegan pizzas in Australian locations. The popular pizza chain launched its vegan pizzas in January. They feature cheese from the U.S.-based manufacturer, Follow Your Heart. Domino’s first teased the launch, asking customers via social media if they would like to try vegan pizzas. Customers responded in droves, saying they were more than eager to try the new product.
Following the social campaign late last year, Domino’s then announced the pizzas as a limited-edition trial run. But the chain quickly made them permanent menu items shortly after locations across the continent continued to sell out.
Domino’s recently teased the likelihood of another vegan menu item: vegan cheesy garlic bread looks to be the next product being added to Domino’s growing vegan menu. The chain similarly teased its customers with a “would you try…” via Facebook, and received a similar response to the pizza tease–a resounding Y-E-S.
Australia is an emerging vegan market following the trend in the U.S. and U.K. In recent months Australia has seen the arrival of Tofurky vegan meat products, the popular Beyond Burger that looks, cooks, and tastes like beef burgers recently debuted at popular chain the Lord of the Fries, and Halo Top’s latest vegan ice cream flavors are now available at Woolworths. The country also has well-established local vegan brands such as the Dairy Free Down-Under brand of cheese.
But despite the U.S. leading in sales of vegan food at the supermarket level, chain restaurants like Domino’s and Pizza Hut continue to lag. Neither have added vegan cheese options to their menus. In the U.K., major chains including the nation’s largest, Pizza Express, already offer vegan pizza options.
