The Paris 2024 ‘Food Vision’ plan aims to double the amount of plant-based food, compared to previous Olympics
The 2024 Paris Olympics are making news not just for sports but also for their strong focus on sustainability. This year, the Games promised to double the amount of plant-based food available, aiming to make the event greener and better for the planet.
Achieving this has involved balancing different needs and interests.
The opening ceremony celebrated France’s rich cultural identity, with food playing a starring role. A memorable moment featured Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and festivities, amidst a vibrant display of fresh produce. However, this focus on food has sparked intense discussion in France, highlighting the challenges of reconciling diverse interests.
Recent relations between France and food
Earlier in 2024, French farmers, upset about low incomes and new rules, protested by blocking highways with their tractors, demanding support for local agriculture. Soon after, climate activists from Riposte Alimentaire made headlines by spraying pumpkin soup on the Mona Lisa at the Louvre, calling for more attention to the environmental impact of food.
Instead of avoiding these issues, the Paris Olympics took them head-on.
Organisers worked to increase plant-based options while still supporting local farmers. Philipp Wurz, head of food for the Paris Games, said the goal was to offer both plant-based and meat options to keep everyone happy.
The Paris 2024 ‘Food Vision’ plan is ambitious. It aims to double the amount of plant-based food compared to previous Olympics, source 80% of ingredients from within France, and make sure 30% of the food is organic. For the first time, one stadium—Place de la Concorde, hosting events like skateboarding and BMX—will be entirely meat-free.
How is the initiative being perceived?
At the start of the Games, some athletes complained about shortages of meat and other foods, raising concerns about quality.
However, Wurz explained that the plant-based focus mainly applies to food for spectators, with about 30% of the food in the athletes’ village being vegetarian.
The Paris Olympics’ focus on sustainability aligns with their goal of cutting carbon emissions by half compared to previous Games. Each meal now aims to have a carbon footprint of just 1kg of CO2 emissions, a big improvement that reflects France’s trend toward eating less meat.
Some athletes have welcomed the change. Kate Strong, a record-breaking cyclist, believes the Olympics could push the plant-based diet even further. Dotsie Bausch, a former US Olympic cyclist, says switching to a plant-based diet helped her win a silver medal in the 2012 Olympics.
Not everyone is satisfied—Nestlé, the parent company of the plant-based meat supplier for the Games, has faced criticism for not doing enough to reduce emissions.
As the Paris Olympics embraces a plant-based menu, meat-free has never been more mainstream. So why are so many vegan influencers doing a backflip?
When Oceana Mackenzie, Australia’s top female sport climber, was growing up, she remembers her then-unconventional lifestyle being met with scepticism.
“When I was younger and I’d say, ‘I’m vegan,’ my competitors’ parents would always comment, ‘Oh, you must not be very strong,’” she recalls. “Which was always really confusing to me because I would be at the competitions – winning them. Well, obviously I do OK.”
Mackenzie is in fact doing far better than just OK. At 22 years old, she is heading to Paris for her second Olympic Games, after representing Australia in sport climbing’s debut at Tokyo in 2020.
She is the type of committed vegan who lists it in her Instagram bio. She bakes vegan, gluten-free muffins to take to training sessions. She sprinkles nutritional yeast “on everything” because, although it looks like fish food, it’s her secret weapon in keeping her B12 levels high (yeast on avocado on toast, yeast on pasta, yeast on a buddha bowl).
One of six children – all girls, all home-birthed, all home-schooled – the Melbournian was raised vegetarian before adopting a vegan diet because “I’d just copy everything my older sister did.” Today, she is committed to a plant-based lifestyle for environmental and health reasons, and she is not the only vegan in the arena.
Vegan athlete, Oceana Mackenzie.
In the lead-up to the Paris Olympics, which kick off on July 26, it was announced that 60 per cent of the food available for spectators will be vegetarian.
At La Place de la Concorde, the public square where many of the “urban” events will take place, catering will be 100 per cent vegetarian. So you can watch Olympic breakdancing while chowing down on a “vegetarian hotdog” – how progressive!
In the Olympic Village, where the athletes eat, there will also be a focus on plant-based offerings – and they are certainly in demand. In the Australian Olympic team, plant-based athletes include climber Campbell Harrison, who describes himself as a “passionate vegetarian” and is driven by environmental reasons.
“As an athlete who travels so much, my carbon footprint is on my mind,” he says. “I think it is a really good diet for climbing as well, because we have to have muscle and power but also be lean – it’s a good balance.”
But what about the rest of us, non-athletes, who aren’t scaling cliffs or leaping off 10-metre-high diving platforms? Well, a lot of us are turning to plant power too.
The Green Scene
According to market research company Roy Morgan, vegetarianism has been steadily rising in Australia for the past 10 years. Nearly 2.5 million Australians (about 12 per cent) now have diets in which the food is all, or almost all, vegetarian.
As for veganism, well, let’s look at the stats for #vegantok.
At the time of writing this article, the TikTok hashtag had over 207 million views, including recipes and videos of sexy farmers cuddling baby cows to pull at your heartstrings.
More than 270,000 people dropped a heart on a three-minute video of Lizzo eating a vegan chicken sandwich. And an Instagram collaboration between Kim Kardashian and vegan meat company Beyond Meat got everyone talking (mostly because in the ad she didn’t appear to eat a bite of the burger).
In July 2023, a vegan supermarket called Greens opened its doors in the Sydney suburb of Newtown. It is said to be the city’s first fully plant-based store, and the largest in the country. Current specials include cashew cheese and vegan pork bites.
‘Beyond Meat’ hired Kardashian as chief taste consultant.
Women are more likely to be vegetarian or vegan than men, with a research paper from the University of California highlighting a link between meat and our gender identities. Men are particularly likely to exhibit “strong emotional attachments” to eating meat, and vegetarian women are less likely to cheat and eat meat than are men, because they are more “prosocially motivated” (in other words, they think about the impact on other people and society).
The reasons people “go veggo” include the potential benefits to their health (reduced risk of heart disease, obesity and diabetes), and the benefits to the planet. Research from a team at Oxford University found that vegan diets result in 75 per cent less climate-heating emissions, water pollution and land use than diets in which more than 100g of meat a day was eaten.
Sounds good, right? You could say it’s a Vegetarian Revolution. But as with all revolutions, there are two sides to the argument.
Plants, but Make it Posh
Interestingly, despite vegetarianism being on the rise, “plant-based makers” are struggling. The company Beyond Meat (yes, the one that hired Kardashian as chief taste consultant in 2022) reported a revenue decline for the first quarter of 2024. Across the board, plant-based meat sales are falling. Partly, this is down to taste; partly, it’s down to cost.
The “gentrification” of veganism has also been criticised. Yes, you can be vegan on a budget, but it’s not very Instagrammable. “The modern vegan – forced to endure the cost-of-living crisis and food inflation – is cash-strapped and time-poor,” wrote Dr Jennifer Yule, a lecturer in marketing, in a commentary for The Guardian. “Cooking Instagram-inspired dishes, such as a tofu veggie scramble for breakfast or jackfruit tacos for dinner, is a time-consuming process. For some, vegan alternatives are simply too expensive.”
Of course, it is possible to be plant-based without a high price tag. A blog called The Stingy Vegan is popular with plant-based eaters looking for cut-price alternatives.
You can even buy merch with snappy slogans like “Spread hummus, not hate”. As the blog’s Canadian creator, Melissa Copeland, writes: “There’s this pervasive myth that eating a plant-based diet is expensive, and it drives me up the wall.”
She encourages people to ditch pricey meat-alternatives and instead think of fresh, colourful vegetables, grains, potatoes and tofu. This brings us back to Olympic climber Oceana.
When she is travelling through Asia and staying in a remote location, her go-to meal is rice noodles mixed with veggie stock, boiled in her hotel room kettle. “Social media can be really great for finding people whose food you like the look of, following them and trying their recipes,” she says. “Even switching up a few meals now and then is better than nothing.”
One of her favourite vegan influencers is Liz Miu, who has more than 465,000 followers on Instagram. All her recipes are vegan and plant-based, and she’s committed. There is, however, a group of vegan influencers who are falling off the wagon – publicly.
If you search on TikTok for “vegan Tiktoker eats meat”, the category has more than 96 million views. The videos have titles like “eating meat for the first time in seven years” and “vegans try meat for the first time”. For some people it’s for the likes; for others it’s a serious, health-related decision.
In one video from 2023, New Zealand influencer and long-time vegetarian Caitlin Wiig reveals that after transitioning back to meat, her body has “never been happier, never been functioning better”. Diagnosed with glandular fever in 2020, she was struggling with constant tiredness, but after rediscovering meat, she isn’t.
Eating-disorder charities have also warned that there can be a link between veganism and disordered eating. According to a fact sheet from Eating Disorders Victoria, “there is evidence that more people with eating disorders report being vegetarian or vegan compared with the rest of the population”. To be clear, they’re not saying veganism causes anorexia, but it can be a risk factor and a way of hiding a problem.
This is why I’ll never call myself vegetarian, despite eating a mostly plant-based diet for years. After overcoming anorexia, I know that labelling myself as anything is a danger zone, and instantly gives me an excuse to cut calories. When it comes to any lifestyle choice, being honest about your motivations is crucial.
The fast-fashion of foods
There’s an intriguing parallel between our consumption of processed meat and fast fashion. Researcher Benjamin Wurgaft, author of Meat Planet, points out, “You have these two industries that make money by doing something as cheaply as possible with very undesirable environmental externalities, but both have an important ‘signalling’ function for people.”
For our ancestors, eating meat was a sign of abundance because a grain-based diet was associated with poverty. Meat is also used to create a sense of belonging, and nowhere more than in Australia, where friends and families bond over barbecues.
So perhaps we should challenge our eating habits in the same way we’re shifting our shopping habits. We might still grab a Kmart T-shirt or a Big Mac sometimes, but more and more we’re choosing sustainable fashion and food sources – even if they are more expensive.
In her book Live More With Less, Australian sustainable-living researcher Dr Kate Luckins recommends a “plant-enthusiastic” approach to food to significantly shrink your food footprint. She says one of the reasons we waste food is “aspirational clutter”.
You know, when you fill your fridge with all the dark, leafy greens on a Sunday only to chuck out their rotting remains the following Friday, after you’ve ordered takeaway. We see you, we are you!
“It’s easy to get carried away buying for the aspirational version of yourself rather than actually matching your product requirements to plans that fit the real version of you,” explains Luckins. She recommends embracing the “shade of green” that’s right for you – whether you’re cutting back on meat or trying to dress more sustainably. It’s worth noting that even our life-long vegan, Oceana Mackenzie, will eat honey when she’s sick (but only if it’s high-quality manuka).
Could the answer be a flexitarian diet? Also called “part-time vegetarianism”, the idea is that your diet is mostly plant-based, but with the flexibility to eat some animal products. According to data from YouGov, about a fifth of Australians now identify with the f-word, and even nutritionists are singing its praises.
Sydney-based nutritionist Lee Holmes is a flexitarian herself. “The flexitarian diet is more achievable and sustainable for most people,” she says. “It can help reduce the risk of nutrient deficiencies that may arise from strict vegetarian or vegan diets, especially for women who have higher needs for certain nutrients – like iron and choline – during certain life stages.”
As the author of the new book Nature’s Way to Healing: A Long Covid Guide, she supports Mackenzie’s approach of plant-based with a dash of honey when you need it. “Incorporating honey during recovery from a cold or flu is an example of how a flexible approach can be beneficial,” says Holmes. “While a well-planned vegetarian diet can support recovery, incorporating some lean animal proteins may be beneficial for certain individuals, especially when recovering from a severe illness like Covid-19.”
For Aussie athletes – and all of us watching the Olympics at home – we’ll be eating “greenish” while cheering for gold.
Anna Henderson said her only regret was that there are not more riders in the pro peloton who follow the same lifestyle
Britain’s first cycling medal winner at the Paris Olympics believes that going vegan made her a faster rider.
Anna Henderson took a surprise second place in the road race time trial on the wet, treacherous streets of the French capital.
The 25-year-old has been vocal about her choice to live a vegan lifestyle in the past and says it has benefited her cycling career.
Speaking in 2021, she said she used to be “one of the biggest meat eaters out there” before finally deciding to have a plant-based diet.
‘I feel better. I’m faster’
Henderson celebrates with her silver medal on the podium during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games Credit: ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT
“I used to be like, ‘I’ll never be vegan, I love meat. But I think what happens is that we all dissociate from what meat is and what animals are”, she told Rouleur cycling magazine.
“I made that connection and then I couldn’t eat meat anymore or any animal products.”
However, Henderson said she had not felt any negative impacts since she gave up meat and felt quicker than ever.
She added: “I feel no difference, I feel better. I’m faster, I’m a bit leaner and I love it.”
Henderson rides for professional Team Jumbo Visma-Lease a Bike and she previously said they had been “really good” supporting her choice.
She added: “It’s super easy [going vegan], actually. I think riders are scared that it will be really hard, but in my opinion, I’ve been totally fine and it’s been a really good experience.”
Her only regret, she said, was that there are not more riders in the pro peloton who follow the same lifestyle: “All round for me it’s been such a huge positive change in my life. And I hope that riders will make the change soon.”
Henderson said she had not felt any negative impacts since she gave up meat Credit: Zac Williams/SWpix.com/Shutterstock
Speaking after the race, in which she finished behind Australia’s Grace Brown, Henderson said: “I didn’t realise how slippery it was out there until I was on the course.
“I thought ‘I could lose a whole Olympic Games on one corner here’, so really take control and gain all of the time in the straights.
“I did that and my coach did a really good job of keeping me calm and pushing until the end.”
Henderson clocked a time of 41min 10.7sec over the 32.4km course through the centre of Paris, 1:31 down on Brown’s gold medal-winning ride.
Henderson is not the only vegan cyclist in the world of professional cyclists.
Former Australian rider Adam Hansen, who completed a record run of 20 consecutive grand tours, has also claimed his vegan diet is critical to his longevity.
“Every time I got blood tests done with the team, they were always amazed at my results because I was the healthiest rider by far with my blood markers”, he said.
“The medics always said I had some of the best results they’d seen.”
Elizabeth Deignan, who will be competing in this year's road race alongside Henderson, is a vegetarian Credit: Luc Claessen
Team GB’s Lizzie Deignan, who will be competing in this year’s road race alongside Henderson, is also a vegetarian after giving up meat at age ten.
During the Tour de Femme, riders consume around 5,000 calories a day to keep up with the gruelling demands of the race.
In order to keep up their calorie intake on a day-to-day basis, vegan riders are advised to simply eat more, and more often.
Riders can get healthy fats from nuts, seeds or avocado, and should also consume higher glycaemic-index carbohydrates in the four hours post-ride.
High GI foods include the cyclist staple of rice cakes, plus bagels and most breakfast cereal.
Stimulate recovery
Road cyclists also need high levels of protein, or amino acids, to stimulate recovery from long training rides.
The problem they face is that the protein content of plants is relatively low, and few provide all the essential amino acids the human body needs for growth and recovery.
Plant-based protein also has a lower biological value than its animal equivalent. This means that less is absorbed and so more must be consumed to meet athletic dietary protein guidelines.
To counter that, riders need to eat a large amount of whole foods such as grains, legumes, nuts and seeds.
The move is a drastic change in prevalent food habits with athletes from neighbouring countries encouraged to travel by train and fans asked to take public transport
If the Rio Olympics’ biggest challenge was to build infrastructure from ground up and Tokyo had to contend with a virus decimating sporting events, Paris 2024 has chosen to go to war against an integral component of the French way of life – its food.
At Paris, athletes, staff and media personnel will be served an extensive Games Village menu, but with a limited spread of what the country is best known for – its meat, cheese and dairy products. The move comes from a desire to reduce animal protein intake and carbon footprint.
When the Games were awarded to Paris, one of the key factors in the decision was environmental concerns. With most of the sporting infrastructure in place, the only new venue developed for the Olympics was an Aquatics Centre at Saint-Denis. That hall is solar-powered, made from recycled and bio-based building material.
Team Ireland athletes at a food kiosk at the Olympic Village in Paris. (Reuters)
Paris has an ambitious plan for curbing its carbon footprint – they are estimating a carbon footprint of 1.58 million metric tons of CO2, less than that of the Covid-hit Tokyo Olympics (1.96 million metric tons of CO2). London 2012 had a CO2 emission of 3.4 million metric tons.
Building new venues is what drastically increases emissions. The organisers also convinced four contingents (the Netherlands, Britain, Belgium and Switzerland) to travel via train to Paris and is requesting visitors from the continent to do the same. There is a robust public transport system and bicycles are available for local travel. But the biggest change is the reduction in animal protein intake.
But why food? And particularly, why animal protein?
According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, livestock farming – the act of growing cattle for food – contributes to 15 percent of global greenhouse emissions and essentially puts animal protein in the same bracket as the transport industry. The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2024 says that when a large group of people eat plant-based meals, employ sustainable public transport for travel and make environment- friendly choices, it forces businesses to cater to changing trends.
According to estimates, the Olympic Games Village will prepare 13 million meals and snacks. The International Olympic Committee says 60 percent of them will be plant-based options. The target is 1 kilogram of CO2 per meal – half of the norm at previous Olympic Games.
It aims to meet that target by including more fruits and vegetables while also using seasonal and local produce (in order to stop excessive transport of food, France intends to source 80 percent of ingredients from within the country).
Predominantly meat-based France
On a day-to-day basis, veganism isn’t the predominant food choice in France. The global average meat consumption is estimated to be 28.1 kg per capita annually. In France, that number shoots up to 83.5 kg.
Changing food habits has been tough. Until 2022, the country had one Michelin star restaurant that was vegan – it shut down within a year. One way in which the Paris Olympics has tried to tackle this issue is by finalising a menu based on four geographical regions (France, Asia, African-Caribbean, World), with 40 different meals on offer every day.
Some of those meal options are ‘Veggie Bourguignon’, ‘Cauliflower and baked potato with turmeric’ (a possible French variant of the humble Aloo gobhi), ‘Bell pepper, onion, tomato and pepper stir fry’ and ‘Veggie Moussaka’.
At La Concorde, where the 3×3 Basketball, Breaking, BMX Freestyle and Skateboarding events are set to take place, all food provided will be vegetarian. “We wanted to focus on vegetarian options,” said Philipp Würz, who is responsible for food & beverages at Paris 2024. “60 percent of the recipes for the general public will be vegetarian. We are convinced that with these Games, we have a unique opportunity to do things differently and show that another model is possible.”
Sodexo Live! implements an unprecedented plant-based, sustainable initiative at this year’s Olympic games
Expect to see a record-breaking amount of vegan options at the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games. According to Sodexo Live!, 60% of all food and beverage across all sites for the public will be plant-based—including one fully vegetarian restaurant, La Concorde. And 30% of the items at Athletes’ Village will be vegan. To put things in perspective, France is preparing to serve 13 million meals during the games.
The meals range from plant-based versions of gametime classics like hot dogs to fancier offerings like Sweet Potato Za’atar with Hummus & Chimichurri.
80% of the Food Supply Sourced Locally
Not only will there be two times the amount of plant-based meals offered at the Olympics, but 80% of the total food supply will be sourced locally from France—supporting local communities and reducing carbon emissions on transporting ingredients. And instead of using disposable dishes, Sodexo Live! plans to introduce 47,000 reusable plates and cut down the amount of single-use plastic in half. This is the first time a sustainability effort as large as this one will be implemented into the main restaurant of an Olympic Village.
Paris Olympics to Prevent Food Waste
If you’re like us, and you read 13 million meals, you probably start to think about how much food will be wasted at the event. But the Paris Olympics team has already built a comprehensive plan to prevent food waste, and recover the waste that cannot be prevented. Unsold and unconsumed food will be given to charity, converted into animal feed, composted, or sent to anaerobic digestion plants.
All of these efforts are a part of the 2024 Paris Olympics goals to cut the carbon footprint of their catering in half. You can read more about their sustainable initiatives here.
The Paris 2024 Olympics looks set to double the amount of plant-based food consumed compared to previous years.
The organisers of this year’s Games, which take place in the summer, are aiming to reduce the overall carbon footprint of the event by 50 percent – and that includes meals. To help achieve this goal, 33 percent of the food in the Athletes’ Village restaurant will be plant-based, along with 60 percent of the snacking offer for the general public and 50 percent of the fare for the workforce.
“Since the start of the project, we have wanted the Paris 2024 Games to be an opportunity to discover and promote a more responsible way of eating from an environmental point of view,” the president of Paris 2024, Tony Estanguet, said in a statement. “… From athletes, volunteers and collaborators to spectators and media, everyone will be able to experiment with a more plant-based diet during the Games.”
The 2024 Games will be more plant-based than ever before - Media Credit: Xinhua / Alamy Stock Photo
A step in the right direction
In total, some 13 million meals will be served during the course of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. While we don’t yet know how many of these will be vegan rather than vegetarian, with the menus still being finalised, the news is being viewed as a significant step forward in traditionally meat-mad France.
At the heart of the plant-based food provision will be the Nestlé-owned Garden Gourmet – one of the French leaders in the field – which will offer its products to everyone from athletes and spectators to staff.
As well as its vegetarian fare, the company’s existing range features several fully vegan options, including burgers, falafels, nuggets, fillets, and plant-based “tuna.” So, we wait to see if any of these make it onto the final Olympic menus.
“Garden Gourmet being an official supporter of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games is a significant achievement,” Marco Zanchi, head of Food France – Garden Gourmet, toldPlant Based News(PBN). “This partnership is not only a great platform to promote plant-based products but also aims to encourage the adoption of a more plant-based and sustainable diet.”
The Olympics has partnered with Garden Gourmet, which offers a range of vegan foods Garden Gourmet
How veganism is growing in the French capital
While France has not exactly been renowned in the past for its vegan provision, things at least seem to be heading in the right direction – certainly in the French capital at any rate.
According to the vegan and vegetarian discovery platform HappyCow, for instance, its overall number of listings for Paris has grown to 1,000 now – compared with 894 in 2022. Furthermore, the number of fully vegan restaurants in the city has increased to 92 – against 88 in 2022.
Similarly, the number of vegan businesses (including shops, bakeries, cafés, B&Bs etc) is now at 160 – versus 150 in 2022. “Veganism is widely accepted in Paris, and people can freely express their dietary choice,” Ken Spector of HappyCow toldPBN. “A number of regular restaurants offer vegan options, and in addition to all-vegan grocery, clothing/accessories, and cosmetic stores, mainstream supermarkets carry a variety of vegan products. High-end restaurants in the city are increasingly adapting to accommodate vegans too.”
Olympic Village eateries will offer an array of plant burgers, quinoa salads and falafels at the 16-day long athletic event held in the French capital later this year
For the first time, more than 60% of food at the Games will be plant-based in a bid to cut carbon emissions. Olympic Village eateries will offer an array of plant burgers, quinoa salads and falafels. Culinary adviser Vincent Gillot, who devised the food offerings, said: “It’s vegan, so good for everything related to a balanced diet and for health too.
“It’s lighter for everything related to sport. It can fit into the diet of athletes.” The menu is part of a drive to slash the event’s carbon footprint by 50%. Paris 2024 president Tony Estanguet has urged spectators to use public transport instead of taxis to curb emissions.
Some 13 million meals will be served during the 16-day Games, which start on July 26. Team GB is on track to be the best-supported team, with Brits buying 487,000 of the 7.8 million tickets sold. Some three million tickets are yet to be bought for events including the football. But a spot at the opening ceremony will set back fans anything between £76 to £2,307.
