Hong Kong-based Green Monday announced today it has struck a longterm partnership with McDonald’s to launch a plant-based menu across all McDonald’s and McCafé locations in Hong Kong and Macau. The menu will incorporate Green Monday subsidiary OmniFood’s alt-pork products into the meals. Green Queen was first to break the news.
The new menu features six dishes developed around OmniPork Luncheon, a plant-based alternative to the processed meat product that’s popular in Asia. Meals include OmniPork Luncheon & Scrambled Egg Burger, OmniPork Luncheon N’ Egg Twisty Pasta, OmniPork Luncheon Deluxe Breakfast and OmniPork Luncheon Jumbo Breakfast, as well as OmniPork Luncheon & Egg Cheesy Toast and OmniPork Luncheon & Egg Mayo Ciabatta. All items are vegetarian, though not vegan, since meals include egg.
David Yeung, cofounder and CEO of Green Monday, told Green Queen that the partnership is “the most monumental and game-changing breakthrough for the plant-based movement in Asia, and one of the biggest milestones globally.”
Currently, partnerships between McDonald’s and plant-based protein companies are few and far between. The mega-chain struck a partnership with Beyond Meat in Canada last year, though the chain ended that trial in April of this year and has no plans to renew it. In the past, McDonald’s has publicly said it will wait to see if plant-based protein is a longterm trend before aligning itself with any one brand.
But thanks to the pandemic highlighting the perils of the meat supply chain, demand for and investment in plant-based protein products has grown so much that the sector is less a trend nowadays than it is a mainstay on retail shelves and restaurant menus. With other QSR brands already featuring plant-based items across their menus (see KFC’s Beyond Meat partnership), McDonald’s can hardly wait much longer to make plant-based items available among its own offerings.
Green Monday itself just raised $70 million. The OmniPork Luncheon menu launches tomorrow across more than 400 McDonald’s and McCafé locations combined.
There is no official word on whether this partnership will expand, though Green Queen points out that Citic Group and the Carlyle Group, which operate the McDonald’s franchise business in Hong Kong, also run the QSR’s franchise business in Mainland China. OmniFoods debuted OmniPork there last year. Clinching the QSR segment market would be an enormous feat for both Green Monday and plant-based protein in general.
And its cancelled now.
What happened??