On-demand housing platform Nestpick.com has released a study on which global cities are most vegetarian-friendly. In response to the global rise in vegetarianism, the team at Nestpick conducted the study to shed light on the evolving lifestyle needs of people looking to relocate. As a company helping new arrivals settle in, they were aware of the difficulties vegetarians often have to face to maintain their nutritional lifestyles in new cities. Nestpick therefore wanted to identify which cities cater best for this group by analysing the cost of being a vegetarian in each location, as well as comparing the availability of vegetarian-specific restaurants and events.
How the study was conducted:
The study began by considering over 200 global cities, across all continents, that are popular for relocation and have a good reputation with vegetarians. Cities were removed where comparable data could not be obtained, resulting in an index of 75 of the most vegetarian-friendly cities. Nestpick then considered which factors are most important for vegetarians to live a happy and healthy life.
The first factor they assessed was the affordability of maintaining a balanced vegetarian diet in each city. To do this, they looked into the price of fruits, vegetables and plant-based protein products, factoring in purchase parity and relative affordability for local residents. They then considered the cost of eating out, calculating the number of affordable vegetarian-friendly restaurants in every city as a share of all restaurants.
Next, the study turned to the robustness of the vegetarian ecosystem in each city. For this, they looked at the availability and quality of vegetarian-friendly restaurants, including the total number per population and average rank of the top 10 vegetarian-friendly restaurants in every city. Restaurants were hit particularly hard during the pandemic, but the study was still able to assess the number and quality of each city’s offering as key indicators. They also calculated the percentage of all restaurants which are vegetarian-friendly and vegan-friendly. Finally, they studied the number of vegetarian events and festivals in each location as markers of how active and established the vegetarian community is.
The total score takes into consideration all of these data points to determine which cities best facilitate a vegetarian lifestyle.
