As a vegetarian, whenever I hit up a fast-food Mexican spot — my road trip go-to — my menu options are typically pretty limited: basically, I can have bean tacos or bean burritos. But starting at the end of this month, Del Taco is offering a new plant-based option at all of its 580 locations across the country.
Del Taco will offer two dedicated plant-based tacos filled with Beyond Meat’s meatless crumbles: the Beyond Avocado Taco (which is vegan) and the Beyond Taco (which has cheese). The tacos are $2.49 each, which is just a smidge pricier than Del Taco’s other taco offerings. Customers can also substitute Beyond Meat as a protein in their burritos, fries, and nachos.
The Mexican chain first started serving Beyond Meat tacos last September with a test run at two Southern California locations. With this rollout, Del Taco will be the first Mexican fast-food restaurant to put Beyond Meat on its menus.
Beyond is making bold strides into fast-food menus across the country. Back in January they rolled out the Beyond Famous Star burger at over 1,000 locations of Carl’s Jr. Add up Beyond’s presence at Carl’s Jr., Del Taco, and at Canadian chain A&W, and that’s a lot of plant-based fast-food burgers.
However, they’re not the only alterna-meat company targeting quick service restaurants (QSR). Impossible Foods’ plant-based patties are available at White Castles throughout the U.S., and it really stepped up earlier this month by announcing a partnership with Burger King. As of now, the Impossible Whopper is only available in a few locations around St. Louis. But if they’re successful — and early reviews are favorable — we could soon see Impossible burgers in all 7,200 BK locations.
We’ve entered into a sort of plant-based war for fast-food supremacy. Yes, demand for alternative protein is skyrocketing and there’s plenty of room for multiple players in the plant-based space. However, there’s probably not room on QSR menus for more than one alt-meat product. Beyond has won Del Taco. We’ll see what chain makes its next plant-based allegiance.