This Navratri season Domino’s is all ready to serve an all-vegetarian menu. The menu won’t even have onion or garlic on pizzas in more than 500 of its stores across North and Central and parts of West India.
Navratri is a nine day Indian festival celebrated with great fervor in the major parts of the country. Due to the traditions and auspiciousness involved with this festival, a lot of people avoid restaurants serving both vegetarian and non-vegetarian food during this period.
“Consumption of non-vegetarian food reduces significantly during this time. This move is an acknowledgement that though we are a global brand, we are conscious about consumer needs. It’s about making a statement to consumers,” Domino’s Pizza India President Dev Amritesh said in an interview with the Economic Times.
The new menu incorporates the dietary restrictions of people during Navratri and includes pizza bases made of singhara atta (water chestnut flour) and saabudana crispies, instead of regular grains. Regular salt is also replaced by rock salt in sauces.
Though Domino’s has previously served all-vegetarian food in some of its selected stores, it’s the first time that any western-style quick service restaurant (QSR) is converting to a Navratri menu on this large of scale.
Call it what you want—a strategy to attract more customers and boost sales growth or a way to make a statement to the consumers. Either way, we love how global food brands are adapting according to the diversity and culture of India. What do you think of it? And are you going to be there at one of these stores tomorrow to try the new Navratri menu? We sure will be.