Reach customers you could not serve before
A strong plant-based option opens the door to vegan diners, flexitarians, health-conscious customers and groups that include someone with limited suitable choices.
Chef-led menu consultancy
Plant-based dishes that earn their place on the menu.
GreenMenu helps cafés, restaurants, food brands and event teams create plant-based food that people want to eat—and kitchens can deliver profitably. New Zealand-wide, Australia-focused and open to international enquiries.
Career chef experience Secure Stripe checkout New Zealand-wide Australia priority International enquiries welcome
A wider market is already there.
Quality plant-based options let more people choose your venue—and give them a reason to come back.Most straightforward starting point
Get a professional Menu Check for NZ$149.
Send up to eight menu items and receive focused written priorities covering customer fit, commercial logic and practical next steps. Fixed scope Secure checkout Priority-first intake
Purchase Menu Check Review the full scope firstNZ$149 total · No NZ GST currently charged
Signature GreenMenu offers
High-value food systems and experiences—not loose collections of recipes.
Choose a fixed-scope consultancy package, commission a custom dinner or retreat menu from a clear brief, or request a bespoke engagement built around your operation.
Swipe, scroll or select an offer to view the dedicated premium page.Flagship consultancy
Menu Profit Reset
A focused chef-led reset for venues ready to strengthen the offer, improve commercial logic and move forward with clear priorities.
What makes it valuableMenu review, development direction, costing guidance, consultation and an implementation plan.
View premium offer Fixed-price custom menu
NZ$795 fixed scopeCustom Five-Course Plant-Based Menu
A tailored five-course menu developed from the client’s event brief, audience, kitchen capability and desired experience.
What makes it valuableFive coordinated courses, commercial recipe sheets, ordering, preparation, plating and one revision round.
View premium offer Fixed-price custom retreat menu
NZ$1,495 fixed scopeCustom Two-to-Three-Day Retreat Menu
A tailored food programme for yoga, wellness, corporate and private retreats, built around the timetable, guests, facilities and staffing brief.
What makes it valuableUp to eight service moments, recipes, quantities, shopping, equipment and a day-by-day production plan.
View premium offer Premium team experience
Cook Together Experience
A relaxed, hands-on team experience for businesses. People prepare a meal together, learn useful skills and finish around the same table. No awkward icebreakers—just good food and a genuinely shared experience.
What makes it valuableTailored menu, chef-led guidance, practical participation and a shared meal.
View premium offer Private travel chef
Private Plant-Based Chef — New Zealand & Worldwide
A discreet chef service for private residences, luxury holidays, family travel, yachts, villas, lodges and selected international itineraries.
What makes it valuableTailored menus, provisioning, daily meal preparation and experienced service ashore or at sea.
View premium offer Bespoke premium engagement
Custom Development, Training & Live Demonstrations
A tailored engagement for new menus, food brands, hospitality teams, conferences, retreats and corporate events—delivered remotely or on site.
What makes it valuableA scope built around your venue, audience, team, location and commercial objective.
View premium offer Food business launch guidance
Food Business Starter Blueprint
Appointment-only guidance for people setting up a small café, food cart, caravan, market stall, catering service or other straightforward food business.
What makes it valuableBegin with a structured planning appointment, then continue with flexible weekly support at your own pace until the business is ready for market.
View premium offer Fixed-scope custom menus keep the price predictable while still responding to the client brief. Wider testing, implementation and direct chef involvement are quoted separately. Prices are shown in NZD and include GST only where applicable.
Compare all premium offersWhy it makes commercial sense
Do not treat plant-based food as a courtesy item. Treat it as customer growth.
By adding a small number of genuinely good vegan and plant-based dishes, a business can serve people who may otherwise have had no reason—or no ability—to choose the venue. The opportunity is not to replace the whole menu. It is to strengthen the range and make the business relevant to more customers.
Win the whole table, not just one diner
One person's dietary needs can shape where a family, work group or social table chooses to eat. A credible option can make your venue the easy decision for everyone.
Give people a reason to return
When quality plant-based food is still difficult to find locally, customers remember the businesses that make them feel properly catered for—and they tell other people.
The practical result: a broader customer base, a more inclusive venue and the chance to build loyalty in a market where genuinely good options are often still limited.
What GreenMenu does
Practical menu work with a commercial chef’s eye.
The goal is not to make a menu look fashionable. It is to create a clearer, stronger offer that works for the customer, the kitchen and the business.
Menu review
A chef-led review of your current plant-based offer, with clear recommendations on range, wording, execution and missed sales opportunities.
Recipe development
Commercial recipes designed for real kitchens: repeatable methods, practical ingredients, service-ready presentation and sensible prep.
Food costing
Cost visibility, portion discipline and pricing guidance so each dish is attractive to customers and commercially defensible.
Built by a chefCommercially grounded, not generic
Better outcomes
Make plant-based food easier to sell—and easier to run.
GreenMenu focuses on the gap between an appealing concept and a dish that survives ordering, prep, service, customer expectations and food cost.
- A stronger plant-based range without rebuilding your whole menu
- Recipes your kitchen team can execute consistently
- Better menu language and clearer reasons for customers to order
- Commercial thinking around ingredient use, waste and margin
Simple process
From current menu to clear next steps.
Send the menu
Share your current menu, goals, kitchen constraints and the kind of customer you want to attract.
Chef review
Damian assesses the offer as a chef and operator—not as a generic food writer or automated recipe generator.
Receive the plan
Get focused recommendations, recipes or a complete development package ready to move into testing and service.
The chef behind GreenMenu
Commercial experience, plant-based specialisation.
Damian Oehlrich is a New Zealand chef with experience across executive kitchens, remote hospitality, lodges, events, cafés and high-volume food service. He understands that a successful dish has to do more than taste good.
GreenMenu combines that operational background with years of plant-based cooking to help businesses create food that is distinctive, practical and commercially useful. Damian is comfortable delivering one-to-one, online, in working kitchens, with hospitality and corporate teams, or in front of groups at workshops, demonstrations and events. He is also happy in front of the camera and understands the practical expectations of television, documentary, radio and media-production environments.
Chef-ledEvery recommendationCommercialBuilt for real servicePlant-basedSpecialist perspectiveMedia-readyComfortable on camera
Established work, public proof
GreenMenu is new. The chef work behind it is not.
These are historic businesses, customer reviews and professional collaborations from Damian's plant-based career. They show the work existed in real kitchens, with real customers, before it became an online consultancy.
Whanganui
Founder and owner-chef venture
The Greenhouse Aotearoa
Damian founded and operated this plant-based café in Whanganui. The public record includes customer reviews and an independent media profile covering the business and Damian's plant-based work.
“The salad was out of this world tasty and plentiful.”
5.0 / 5
Plant-based pop-up and public reviews
Crafted by D · Picton pop-up
Crafted by D was Damian's plant-based pop-up in Picton. Eight public Tripadvisor reviews praised the food, presentation, coffee, service and ability to make plant-based food welcoming to non-vegan customers.
“Friendly service, delicious coffee and incredible plant based food.”
Plant-based specialist
Retreat and demonstration work
YogaChef experience
Marlborough Yoga Retreats publicly lists Damian for private-chef work and plant-based cuisine cooking demonstrations.
“Chef / Plant-Based Cuisine Cooking Demonstrations”
Private plant-based chef travel
Take a chef who understands your food with you.
For selected private clients, Damian is available to travel within New Zealand or internationally to provide tailored plant-based food during a holiday, family stay, voyage, retreat or private-residence engagement. The service is designed for clients who value privacy, consistency and the freedom to enjoy their trip without planning every meal.
Damian grew up sailing in the Marlborough Sounds and worked as chef aboard MV Odyssey out of Broome in 2024, preparing food for guests and crew in a compact galley during remote marine operations. He is particularly well suited to private yachts, charter vessels, expedition boats and coastal itineraries.
Personalised menus and dietary planning Ingredient sourcing and provisioning Daily preparation and discreet service Private yachts, charter vessels and expedition boats Family holidays, villas, lodges and private homes
Free tools and practical value
Useful enough to return to. Focused enough to keep premium work valuable.
Use the calculators and planning tools for a fast starting point. Paid GreenMenu work begins where generic outputs stop: testing, exact yields, supplier realities, implementation and team support.
Browse all free toolsAvailable now
PlantSwitch
Find practical vegan ingredient replacements with quantities, use-case guidance and preparation notes.
Open tool area Available nowRecipe Cost Calculator
Calculate food cost, portion cost, gross margin and a useful target selling price.
Open tool area Available nowWhat’s in Season
See seasonal produce, what is coming next and where it may fit on a menu or specials board.
Open tool area Available nowDish Idea Generator
Turn three or four plant-based ingredients into practical concepts ranked for ease and margin potential.
Open tool areaLive market context: Open the Plant-Based Business Pulse for current industry headlines, published growth data and practical operator signals.
Support future plant-based research
Found something useful? Help fund the next recipe test.
Voluntary tips help cover ingredients, test batches, photography, research time and the continued development of free GreenMenu tools. They also support the current build of a 100% vegan food caravan in Marlborough, designed around fresh, local and tailored plant-based options.
Recipe trials and ingredient testing More useful free tools and guides Development of the vegan food caravan Or simply buy the chef a coffee
Buy 1 or 2 coffees — NZ$5 each Send a research idea or messageChoose one coffee for NZ$5 or two for NZ$10 in Stripe. One-time voluntary support; not a charitable donation or tax-deductible gift.
Common questions
Built for operators, not just vegan venues.
Plant-based menu work should make the whole offer stronger—not make the business feel narrower.
Is GreenMenu only for fully vegan businesses?
No. GreenMenu works with cafés, restaurants, accommodation businesses and food brands that want stronger plant-based choices. Your entire business does not need to be vegan.
Will the recipes work in a commercial kitchen?
That is the point. Recommendations are shaped around workflow, staffing, ingredient availability, prep load, consistency and service—not just how a dish looks in a photograph.
Can you work with businesses outside New Zealand?
Yes. GreenMenu works New Zealand-wide, prioritises New Zealand and Australian clients, and welcomes international enquiries. Remote projects can be delivered worldwide, while on-site travel is quoted separately.
Can we contact Damian by phone or WhatsApp?
The public contact method is email. A direct phone number or WhatsApp contact can be shared privately once a client is engaged and the project needs faster communication.
Ready to start?
Send the menu—or tell Damian what you want your team to experience.
A quick email is enough. We can work out the sensible next step from there.
Email Damian Enquiries are reviewed personally Phone and WhatsApp are shared privately with engaged clients