I would be very surprised if EK doesn’t monitor exactly the meal choices of pax, especially in premium cabins - especially that they have order pads in J.

Whilst there are global trends to consider what’s more important for them are the tastes and trends of their own premium pax - given vegetarian options are generally cheaper and lighter EK should jump at the chance to replace a more expensive option!

To me that suggests that the driving force here is pax feedback and it’s just not there in favour of providing the option more widely: surveys and emails are all well and good but the raw consumption data of SPML and options on board is more real data...