Beyond Meat, the company most well-known for its plant-based burger, will be dropping a new product in retail: the Beyond Breakfast Sausage. According to a press release from Beyond Meat, the new offerings are made with pea protein and will come in two flavors, classic and spicy. The patties contain 11 grams of protein per serving and contain 50 percent less fat and 33 percent fewer calories than the average pork sausage.
Beyond Breakfast Sausage will launch in select retailers — including Albertsons, Key Foods, and Whole Foods — by the end of March. Unlike Beyond’s iconic plant-based burgers or other sausage product, which are both sold in the refrigerated meat section, the new breakfast sausages will be available breakfast meat section of the frozen aisle. The MSRP for a six-pack of Beyond Breakfast Sausage is $4.99.
This isn’t the first time Beyond has sold a plant-based breakfast sausage. The company first began testing its breakfast sausage on an egg-and-cheese sandwich at Dunkin’ in New York in July of 2019, then accelerated a nationwide rollout of the product to all Dunkin’ locations after higher-than-expected consumer demand. And just a few weeks ago Starbuck’s in Canada announced that it would launch a meatless breakfast sandwich which includes a Beyond sausage patty.
Notably, each restaurant chain stated that it had created its own unique blend of herbs and spices for its meatless sausage patty. It’s unclear whether the new frozen retail sausages will mimic the flavor blend of either Dunkin’ or Starbucks.
One thing to note is that the Beyond Breakfast Sausage will be sold in the frozen section, which might be an adjustment for shoppers who are used to seeing Beyond products in the refrigerated meat section of their grocery store. (Though plenty of retailers still sell the plant-based meat in the frozen section, anyway.)
As we’ve stated in the past, breakfast is a meal ripe for plant-based innovation. “Entering the breakfast meat category was the natural next step for our brand as we look at our runway for future growth,” Chuck Muth, Chief Growth Officer at Beyond Meat, stated in the aforementioned press release. Beyond isn’t the only company gunning for your breakfast. Impossible Foods recently began testing the Impossible Sausage Croissan’wich, featuring a plant-based pork breakfast patty, at select Burger King locations.
However, while these next-gen plant-based breakfast meats are making their way onto more and more fast-food menus, they’re relatively untested in retail. This upcoming product launch could give some insight into whether or not alt-breakfast meat can translate its restaurant success into the grocery store.
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