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fast food

November 28, 2023

Tech-Powered Regenerative Chicken Joint ‘Mt. Joy’ Opens Second Restaurant in Seattle

This week, Seattle-based regenerative restaurant chain Mt. Joy announced it’s opening its second location in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle. The new location – Mt. Joy’s first brick-and-mortar location after opening a food truck this fall – will be nestled next to Seattle’s only Sweetgreen on the corner of 11th and Pine in a brick building formerly home to the Stout Brewery.

A new restaurant opening usually doesn’t cross our radar, but what makes this one particularly interesting is the grandiose vision of its founder, Robbie Cape. Cape, who made a name for himself first at Microsoft and then as CEO and cofounder of health tech startup 98point6, has plans to open a nationwide chain of tech-forward regenerative chicken sandwich shops. While several big restaurant chains have made small moves to burnish their regenerative bonafides (small enough that some have labeled these efforts a new form of greenwashing), Cape has made it clear that his chain – and especially his chicken – will be built entirely around hyperlocal, extremely transparent regenerative sourcing practices.

“When I say regenerative to every component of the supply chain and bringing joy to all the constituents, I really do mean it,” Cape said when The Spoon sat down with him this September at his food truck opening. “And I know it’s audacious. And I know we’re not going to get it right on every one all the time. But we’re going to try, and we’re going to keep trying to get better.”

Cape knew when he came up with the idea that creating a fully regenerative-focused chicken sandwich chain would be a heavy lift, particularly for someone without any previous restaurant experience. Because of this, he started cold-calling restaurant folks, including Seattle-famous chef and restaurateur Ethan Stowell, to soundboard the idea.

Above: Mt. Joy CEO Robbie Cape with Company’s Chief Agricultural Officer, Grant Jones

“The first lesson that I learned when I was starting to get feedback from people in the restaurant business about this cockamamie concept that I had around building a restaurant around regenerative is the food has to be great. Someone told me, ‘You got to know Robbie, no matter how good this story is, it won’t matter unless the food is the best,'” said Cape. “And so that was one of the reasons I set out to try to meet Ethan Stowell, which was not easy. He’s a celebrity, and I didn’t know that I had any connection to him. It turns out I do. But I reached out via the ‘Contact Us’ form on his website.”

As it also turns out, Stowell liked the idea and came on as cofounder (as would Stowell’s former executive pastry chef, Dionne Himmelfarb, who ran point on designing Mt Joy’s menu). Once Cape had his chef(s) on board, he set about building the rest of the team, including bringing on a marketing person, a farmer with experience in regenerative farming practices, and a tech person. Surprisingly, for a tech entrepreneur, it was this last hire – chief technology officer – that Cape initially had the most reservations about.

“I sat down with Ethan and said, ‘I’m a little reticent about raising this with you, but I think that we need a technologist on the founding team because we want to build a new way of interacting with the restaurant.’ So I started to pitch it like, ‘I think we need a technologist,’ and Ethan’s like, ‘Robbie, absolutely, we do. 100%.'”

And it’s this part of the Mt. Joy equation – the customer interaction piece – where Cape’s (and CTO Justin Kaufman‘s) technology background shines through. When I visited Mt. Joy’s food truck installation in the fall, there was a QR code that showed me the way to the app, and once I ordered my chicken sandwich and fries, I got a text notifying me when my food was ready.

That’s all pretty standard stuff nowadays, but Cape sees the digital order flow as a way to create new and interesting personalized experiences tailored around preferences and past order history.

“When you come to restaurants, they never know who you are,” Cape said. “They don’t know what you ordered last time. They forget about you, like every time it’s new. When you go to Google, Google knows you. When you go to Apple, they know you. We need to know you.”

While I wasn’t as convinced by Cape’s belief that he could differentiate around digital ordering interfaces as he was, I figured he and his CTO would develop some interesting ideas. However, I was convinced about his effort to source every single ingredient through local farmers and food companies, something which was already evident in the menu. Every ingredient listed the source and the mileage it had traveled before being put on the menu. About the only thing that traveled over a hundred miles were spices like paprika which aren’t grown in the Seattle market.

Cape wasn’t flustered when I told him his list of sources for each ingredient was impressive, but replicating it beyond Seattle would require rebuilding the supply chain in each new market.

“It’s true, it’s hard, a little more expensive, but it’s mostly like that’s an intellectual game,” said Cape. “So you have a team who’s going to have to really be thinking about sourcing, and we’re gonna have to build these relatively local supply chains. But as it turns out, there’s a lot of products. There are a few areas where we might have a few challenges, and our answer to that is we’ll be transparent.”

If you’re in the Seattle market and want to find out what a fried chicken sandwich sourced from regenerative farming practices tastes like, you can visit Mt. Joy’s newest location starting December 1st.

October 18, 2021

Watch Flippy Make Fries at CaliBurger’s Newest Location in Washington State

Today CaliBurger announced they’d opened the first restaurant since the onset of the pandemic. The latest addition to the burger chain is in Shoreline, Washington, and to mark the importance of the occasion, the company brought a friend: Flippy the fry robot.

CaliBurger’s use of Flippy at the north Seattle location is the first deployment of Miso Robotics’ fast food robot in the Seattle market. According to the release, Flippy will start at the fry station, but the restaurant expects its new employee to be somewhat versatile:

While the Shoreline store will use Flippy for french-fry cooking initially, Flippy can also cook chicken breasts and tenders, onion rings, sweet potato waffle fries in addition to fries. The system’s image recognition technology allows for real-time quality control to prevent any food quality errors during the cooking process and before any food items reach customers.

The new CaliBurger location is also the first time the chain has deployed PopID’s pay-by-face technology. PopID, which launched its pay-by-face network in southern California last year, allows customers to create an account that ties a debit card to their biometric ID (i.e., their face). The customer can also pull up information such as favorites and loyalty points once ID’d at the point of sale.

As for Flippy, CaliBurger CEO Jeffrey Kalt had the now-standard company line we hear when a new food robot is installed in a new location: the deployment of Flippy will allow the humans to focus on customer-facing jobs and, as a result, will improve the overall guest experience.

“The deployment of Flippy enables CaliBurger to retrain our staff to spend more time tending to customer needs to better improve the guest experience, while supervising the robotic system that’s handling the cooking,” said Kalt. “This results in happier workers, more satisfied customers, and a more profitable business.”

You can watch the video of Flippy in action below:

Watch Flippy the robot make fries at Caliburger in Shoreline, Washington

February 13, 2020

Future Food: Is the Honeymoon Over for Fast Food and Meatless Meat?

This is the web version of our weekly Future Food newsletter. Subscribe to get the most important news about alternate and plant-based foods directly in your inbox!

Valentine’s Day is coming up, and love is in the air — but it looks like the once hot-and-heavy relationship between plant-based meat and fast-food is experiencing some bumps.

This week Burger King reported overall sales growth of 0.6 percent for Q4 of 2019, which fell short of Wall Street estimates. That’s a marked dip from just a few months ago, when BK’s sales increased roughly 15 percent globally, in large part due to the success of the recently-launched Impossible Whopper.

It was with a much more muted tone that Jose Cil, CEO of Burger King’s parent company Restaurant Brands International, mentioned the plant-based burger on the company’s most recent earnings call (h/t CNBC):

… the Impossible Whopper was a big highlight of 2019 and continued to be an important sales driver in the fourth quarter, generating healthy levels of incrementality at a premium price point.

The dip in excitement could be attributed to a confluence of several factors. First and foremost, the novelty of plant-based meat is starting to wear off across the QSR space. When Burger King first decided to start selling the Impossible Whopper, the news made headlines everywhere (including here). That media blitz likely attracted lapsed vegetarian/vegan consumers as well as consumers who were curious to try this whole fake-meat-that-bleeds concept. In all likelihood, at least some of those diners tried the Impossible Whopper then decided that it wasn’t worth reordering, or that they preferred their regular beefy order.

Another issue is over-saturation. Burger King was one of the first (and the largest) fast-food chains to embrace meat alternatives on its menu. Now it’s becoming the norm for QSR’s, from Dunkin’ to KFC, to serve vegetarian meat — with the noted exceptions of McDonalds (in the U.S.) and Arby’s.

We also can’t discount price as a factor in this decline. Depending on the location, Impossible Whoppers cost one to two dollars more than a regular Whopper. Overall that’s not much, but it’s a heckuva lot more significant in a fast food context where an extra buck can get you anything from fries to a large soda. Maybe the price difference didn’t scare off people who wanted to try the next buzzed-about burger, but was too much for them to justify paying on the regular.

Burger King is clearly aware that the Impossible Whopper’s cost is a problem. That’s why they recently added the plant-based offering to its 2 for $6 menu, but it may be too late for those who have already categorized the Impossible Whopper as an expensive option.

Photo: Burger King.

In a Future Food newsletter last year, just as QSRs were starting to debut meat alternatives left and right, I asked a question: Is fast food’s love affair with plant-based meat going to last?

To continue with the romance analogy, I don’t think the two are ready to split up. Instead, they’re settling into coupledom — things are less hot-and-heavy but more consistent.

So it might be time for fast food and plant-based meat to spice up their relationship and experiment by introducing new products (fried chicken! bacon!) or trying cost-saving promotions (like Burger King is doing now).

The honeymoon period might be over, but the foundation is still there. Time for phase two of the relationship.

Should we be discussing plant-based dog food?
Meatless meat may be cooling its love affair with fast-food, but it’s heating up in a very different space: pet food. According to market intelligence agency Mintel, roughly one third of all U.K. dog food buyers want to purchase more plant-based food for their pets.

I’ve considered covering meat-free pet food in this newsletter before, but something always stopped me. We at the Spoon cover human food tech news, right?

But then I read a crazy statistic, that in the U.S., dogs and cats are responsible for 25 to 30 percent of total meat consumption. If they were their own country, they would rank fifth in the world. That’s huge! And as the population grows and pet ownership increases in developing countries, the total meat consumed by dogs and cats will only go up. It might make sense to start thinking seriously about the future of pet food, after all.

What do you think? Would you be interested in coverage on pet food — new ingredients (cell-based meat!), distribution methods, etc? Tweet your thoughts to @TheSpoonTech and let me know!

Alpha Foods

Protein ’round the web

  • Alpha Foods raised $28 million for its frozen plant-based proteins and premade meals.
  • FUMI Ingredients, an ingredient developer which has made plant-based egg whites, snagged a €500,000 ($552,000) investment (h/t AgfunderNews).
  • Meatless Farm has partnered with meal kit company Gousto to create kits featuring its beef alternatives.

January 29, 2020

KFC Commences Rollout of Beyond Fried Chicken with New Iteration

KFC announced today that it was expanding the test locations of plant-based Beyond Fried Chicken. Starting on February 3, select KFC locations in Charlotte, NC and Nashville, TN areas will offer Beyond Meat’s vegan fried chicken. It will be on menus through February 23, or as long as supplies last.

This news comes roughly five months after KFC debuted the Beyond Fried Chicken sandwich during a one-day test in Atlanta, GA. To say that the test was a success is a bit of an understatement — it drew lines around the block and sold out in less than five hours.

Since then, Beyond hasn’t just been sitting around twiddling their thumbs — according to the press release, the Charlotte and Nashville markets will actually roll out a new-and-improved iteration of the Beyond Fried Chicken. The plant-based chicken 2.0 is apparently more closely resembles the real thing, and also “pulls apart like a chicken breast.”

This last part is especially important since texture is a huge issue for plant-based meats, particularly for whole muscle cuts like steak and — you guessed it — chicken breast. Beyond Meat may have attracted flexitarians with its burger, but chicken is a different, and more challenging, ball game. Beyond knows it only has one shot make a first impression for its plant-based bird, which is likely why it’s being so cautious (and gradual) in its rollout.

Interestingly, the new locations will offer a more streamlined plant-based menu than the Atlanta test. Charlotte and Nashville will sell Beyond Fried Chicken pieces in four and 12-piece a la carte and combo options. Atlanta, however, offered wings and nuggets, but not whole fried chicken pieces. Pricing for the new locations has not yet been disclosed.

It may be moving slowly, but KFC is definitely invested in the plant-based meat movement. And not just in the U.S. In November KFC Canada did a one-day test of a meatless fried chicken sandwich featuring Lightlife “chicken,” though it has yet to announce a rollout schedule. I think that KFC is smart to get a chicken alternative on its menu before its bird-loving QSR competitors like Chick-fil-A and Popeye’s join the party.

If you’re in one of the lucky areas to get the Beyond Fried Chicken, make sure to drop us a line and let us know how it tastes!

January 8, 2020

It’s Official: Impossible Will Not be On McDonald’s Menus (but Beyond Will)

After months of wondering which fake meat McDonald’s would finally put on its menus, we’re one step closer to an answer. Today Impossible Foods told Reuters that it was no longer trying to win a deal to supply the largest fast-food chain in the world, stating that it could not produce enough “bleeding” plant-based meat to keep them supplied.

Production is a looming concern for Impossible. At the unveil of its new plant-based pork at CES 2020 in Las Vegas, CEO Pat Brown told the audience that production capacity was the company’s “biggest challenge right now.” Nonetheless, Impossible is expanding its partnership with Burger King, which will begin serving the Impossible Croissan’wich, featuring Impossible’s new faux sausage, this month. It also told CNBC that it’s doubling its R&D team over the next year to speed up new product releases.

But that’s not all. The day after this news broke, McDonald’s and Beyond Meat announced that they were expanding their partnership in Canada. McDonald’s began testing the PLT (Plant, Lettuce, Tomato) sandwich, which is made with a Beyond Meat patty, at 28 restaurants in Southern Ontario last September. Starting this week they’re almost doubling that test to fifty-two restaurants in the Ontario area. The test will last for the next three months.

Put all of these clues together, and it doesn’t take a genius to guess that McDonalds’ in the U.S. could soon be rolling out a Beyond Meat burger. If they do, it would be a smart move for Mickey D’s. Burger King has benefitted enormously from its partnership with Impossible Foods. As more and more fast-food chains embrace plant-based meat — on all parts of their menu, including breakfast — the more notable it is that McDonald’s doesn’t have a meatless meat offering

The big question on my mind — besides when this new menu item will launch — is what a McDonald’s Beyond burger might be called. As I’ve written previously, I have some issues with the name P.L.T. because a) the sandwich doesn’t have any bacon, faux or otherwise, and b) it doesn’t leverage the Beyond brand. If they launch a Beyond offering in the U.S., McDonald’s would be smart to follow Burger King’s lead and put the Beyond name in it.

Whatever they call it, Beyond better wait to make that leap until it’s sure that it can do what Impossible could not: keep up with the massive demand of the number one fast-food chain in the world. At this stage, when alternative meat is starting to gain new audiences from QSR partnerships, a supply hiccup could put off consumers — and it might be hard to get them back. Especially with a fast-food chain that’s pretty much ubiquitous with burgers.

Beyond’s CEO Ethan Brown has previously stated that they were prepared to supply even very large restaurant partners. But will that include the largest restaurant chain in the world? With McDonald’s slowly (but surely) expanding its test of the PLT — and Impossible out of the picture — I’m betting we’ll soon find out.

December 16, 2019

Taco Bell in China Debuts Plant-based OmniPork Crunchy Taco for Chinese Palates

Today Taco Bell launched a limited edition taco made with plant-based Omnipork in all Shanghai locations. Called the OmniPork Crunchy Taco, the offering will feature OmniPork’s meat-free ground pork cooked with spicy Yu Xiang sauce and lettuce. The fast-food chain will sell 6,000 of these tacos, priced at RMB 25 ($3.58 USD) each, starting today until they run out.

For those who don’t know, OmniPork is the first product from Green Monday, the Hong Kong-based group of restaurants and shops focused on promoting vegan dining in Asia. Green Monday founder David Yeung developed OmniPork, a ground pork substitute made from plants, specifically to appeal to Asian audiences who eat pork far more than, say, beef or chicken.

OmniPork is already sold in Hong Kong, Singapore, Macau and Thailand. It also made its debut in mainland China last month through online retailer Tmall. When announcing the news, Yeung said that OmniPork would be rolling out at over 180 restaurants in Shanghai and Beijing over the next two months. Clearly at least a few of those spots are Taco Bells.

Taco Bell is the first fast-food venue to sell OmniPork. It may seem ironic that the first QSR partner for a company focused on Asian palates is one that serves Tex-Mex food. However, Chinese consumers have taken to the fast-food chain since it returned to the country after an almost ten-year hiatus. The OmniPork Crunchy Taco is also specifically developed with Chinese flavors and uses plant-based pork instead of beef, as a nod to China’s most popular meat.

The Taco Bell partnership could be just the beginning for OmniPork’s foray into fast food. “We are confident that this special promotional launch is the beginning of a long partnership between the Green Monday group with Taco Bell as well as other brands under the Yum China portfolio,” stated Yeung in a press release.

Considering that the Yum China portfolio also includes KFC, Pizza Hut, and others, if the OmniPork Crunchy Taco has a favorable debut I bet we’ll be seeing OmniPork pop up in a lot more fast-food restaurants in China very soon.

November 8, 2019

Wendy’s is Semi-Secretly Testing a Plant-Based Burger in Canada

Wendy’s seems to be following in McDonald’s footsteps and launching a plant-based burger in Canada. In September McDonald’s began testing a meat-free burger in select Canadian locations. Earlier today, vegan advocacy sites LiveKindly and VegNews reported that social media picked up an outdoor Wendy’s advertisement in Toronto showing a burger called “The Plentiful” along with the words: “Where’s the beef? Not here.”

The fast-food chain hasn’t publicly announced the new burger yet, nor is it listed on its website. According to LiveKindly, The Plentiful is made from pea protein and is served with non-vegan cheese and mayonnaise.

And… that’s about all we know for sure. It’s unclear how much The Plentiful will cost, how many Wendy’s locations will offer it, or how long it will be available. Perhaps most importantly, we don’t know which brand of plant-based burger is on The Plentiful or whether it’s made from a patty developed internally by Wendy’s. Since we know the burger is pea protein-based, that rules out Impossible, which is made from soy and potato protein — but not Beyond.

If indeed The Plentiful is made with a Beyond Burger, Wendy’s would really be taking a page from McDonald’s book. The latter began testing a plant-based burger made with a Beyond patty called the P.L.T. (Plants, Lettuce, Tomato) in select locations in Canada this September. If this is the case, both Wendy’s and McDonald’s chose to omit the Beyond brand name from their new menu items — a move that I think is a missed opportunity to draw in new consumers familiar with the Beyond media buzz.

Regardless, it’s not a huge surprise that Wendy’s is hopping on the plant-based meat trend. During this year’s second-quarter review call Wendy’s CEO Todd Penegor acknowledged the popularity of meat alternatives and said it was something that the fast-food chain would “look into.” Right after that Wendy’s fans gathered around 30,000 signatures on a petition calling the restaurant to add a plant-based burger to its menu.

Canada seems to be prime territory for fast food restaurants to test out new plant-based products. In addition to McDonald’s, 7-Eleven began selling a Beyond Meat pizza in the Great White North. Canadian chains Tim Horton’s and A&W were some of the first major fast-food chains to add Beyond Meat to their menus — though Tim Horton’s has since stopped serving the meat alternative in all but two regions.

We’ve reached out to Wendy’s and will update the post when we hear back. Until then, if you’re a Spoon reader in Toronto, give The Plentiful a try and tell us what you think!

 

October 29, 2019

Report: Impossible Whopper Boosts Burger King Sales, Will Popeyes Embrace Plant-Based Meat?

Yesterday Restaurant Brands International (RBI), owner of fast-food chains Burger King, Popeyes, and Tim Horton’s, announced its Q3 2019 Earnings Results.

The report showed that Burger King’s sales increased roughly 15 percent globally for the quarter. In the U.S., the launch of the Impossible Whopper drove 5% comparable sales growth, which Jose Cil, CEO of RBI, noted was the “strongest level since 2015.”

This isn’t exactly surprising. Impossible Whopper sales reportedly boosted traffic by over 18 percent to the BK in St. Louis which first tested the plant-based burger. Reports show, that the alt-meat burger is also leading to higher ticket sales and attracting more millennials and lapsed visitors (like The Spoon’s Chris Albrecht) to the fast-food giant. The RBI Earnings Results seems to indicate that this boost in traffic/ticket amount has continued as the Impossible Whopper rolled out to all Burger Kings nationwide.

Not all was rosy in the report, though. Tim Horton’s had what Cil called “a challenging quarter,” reporting only 0.1 percent growth compared to 2.8 percent growth in the same quarter a year earlier. This comes at the same time that the Canadian fast-food chain nixed Beyond Meat products from its menu, except in Ontario and British Columbia, just months after adding the plant-based meat to 4,000 of its restaurants.

These two facts might have nothing to do with each other. However, the report shows a rapid downturn for Tim Horton’s after the chain had a surprisingly strong Q2, in which its success was attributed, at least in part, to its adoption of Beyond Meat patties. Tim Horton’s rolled out the plant-based meat nationwide in July (that is, during Q3), so maybe consumers across Canada didn’t flock to the Beyond Meat offerings in the same way they did in the initial test markets?

Interestingly, Popeyes had one of its best quarters in nearly two decades, thanks to the viral popularity of its chicken sandwich. Next up, RBI might well continue its history of experimenting with alternative protein and launch a plant-based chicken sandwich. But it better hurry if it doesn’t want KFC or Chick-fil-A to beat it to the punch.

August 7, 2019

Qdoba CEO: We Chose Impossible Foods for “Its Unique Flavor and Texture”

The world of fast-food burritos has experienced a real shake-up lately, thanks to one thing: plant-based meat.

Now if you’re hitting up the drive-thru at least two popular Mexican food chains, you can opt to replace the beef in your tacos/burritos/bowls with meatless meat. This April, Del Taco rolled out Beyond Meat to all of its menus. Just a month later, Qdoba began serving Impossible’s plant-based beef in all of its 730+ locations nationwide.

The meatless meat lines have been drawn, with Del Taco on one side with Beyond Meat and Qdoba on the other with Impossible. During an email interview with The Spoon, Qdoba’s CEO Keith Guilbault told me that the chain decided to go with Impossible over other plant-based meat suppliers because their “protein stood out for its unique texture and flavor.”

Jill Adams, Qdoba’s VP of Marketing, echoed the sentiment over the phone last month. “We landed on Impossible because it delivers on flavor,” she said. “There’s also high consumer awareness around the product.”

Because of this awareness, she told me that Qdoba had seen a wave of new customers come in specifically to try the Impossible products. In fact, according to Adams, when Qdoba tested Impossible menu items in Eastern Michigan this February they saw transactions grow 4 percent. “There was an immediate uptick,” she said.

The post-Impossible spike isn’t exactly surprising. Immediately after adding Beyond Meat “beef” to their menus, Del Taco reported an increase in both check size and overall food traffic. In fact, many QSR’s report an uptick in traffic and sales immediately after adding a plant-based meat option to their menus.

Whether that uptick will turn into a steady increase remains to be seen. However, for now Del Taco and Qdoba seem to have carved out their own corners. As of now, they don’t have any competition from other Mexican food QSR’s: Taco Bell has a new vegetarian menu but is steering clear of fake meat, whereas Chipotle recently announced that it wouldn’t serve Impossible or Beyond since they were too processed.

Qdoba and Del Taco’s menus are relatively similar, which means that the brand of plant-based meat (or lack thereof) they use could become a significant factor when people decide where they want to stop for fast-food burritos — especially as more and more diners become familiar with meatless meat. But for now, the simple fact that Qdoba and Del Taco both offer plant-based meat could be enough to lure in new customers; vegetarian, flexitarian and otherwise.

June 24, 2019

McDonald’s is Testing Kitchen Robots and AI-Powered Drive-Thrus. It’s About Time

Last week the Wall Street Journal broke the story that McDonald’s is testing robotic deep fryers and voice-activated drive-thrus at a location in suburban Chicago.

The story didn’t lay out a ton of details. We don’t know what the robotic fryer will look like — whether it’s akin to Miso Robotic’s Flippy, which fries tater tots with an articulating arm, or if it’s more of an automated basket that dips and raises from hot oil. Likewise, all we know about the new drive-thru tech is that it’s a type of voice recognition technology.

But even with those question marks, this is a huge step forward for automation in fast-food. It’s also an inevitable one, since the success of the QSR is predicated on making consistent food at a fast pace. I’m hard-pressed to find a task that robots are more suited for.

The WSJ pointed out that these innovations are part of McDonald’s efforts to quicken the chain’s pace of service to help it edge out fast-food competition. That’s certainly true, but there are numerous other benefits as well. Automating dangerous jobs like frying could lead to fewer employee injuries. In addition to being potentially life-threatening, these injuries can also have a high cost for the restaurant.

As far as the drive-thru goes, adding voice recognition technology can help McDonald’s streamline the drive-thru experience, cutting down on ever-lengthening wait times. It could also pair up with Dynamic Yield, the AI-powered personalization platform that McDonald’s acquired a few months ago, to access customer’s past orders, preferences, and dietary restrictions to better upsell them on targeted add-ons.

Of course there will still be kinks to work out. Voice technology isn’t perfect, and robot fryers still need human employees to help them do things like bag orders. McDonald’s is also already getting blowback from skeptics who worry that automation will take valuable jobs away from humans.

However, speakers at our ArticulATE conference this April pointed out that there’s a growing labor crisis in the restaurant industry. QSR’s especially are struggling to find people to do the more repetitive, boring and dangerous tasks — like frying nuggets and taking orders for hours at a time.

McDonald’s isn’t the first restaurant to try out cooking robots or voice ordering technology. However, it’s by far the largest. It’s hard to argue against the fact that automation in food-service, as with any industry, was always going to happen eventually. But once a giant like McDonald’s starts putting the automation wheels in motion, eventually starts to look a whole lot sooner.

June 6, 2019

Future Food: Impossible? Beyond? Our Guide to Meatless Meat in Fast Food

This is the web version of our weekly Future Food newsletter. The newsletter has exclusive additional content, so be sure to subscribe here so you don’t miss a beat!

Quick service restaurants (QSRs) can read the tea leaves: consumers want more tasty, meatless options. The month after it put the Impossible Whopper on St. Louis store menus, Burger King reported an 18 percent increase in foot traffic. Del Taco’s introduction of the Beyond Meat tacos was one of the chain’s most successful product launches ever.

It’s a smart play for fast-food joints to embrace plant-based meat, allowing them to:

  • Attract new customers who might not otherwise opt to eat at the restaurant
  • Draw back lapsed customers who might have pivoted away from fast-food to embrace a more plant-based diet
  • Boost their brand and frame themselves as an innovator.

With all this action, it can be hard to keep track of which chains are serving which meat alternatives. Who’s got the Impossible patty? Which spots are hitching their horse to Beyond Meat? Which restaurants have yet to make a move, and is anybody rejecting meat alternatives altogether? (Cough, Arby’s, cough.)

It’s a lot to keep straight. Thankfully, we drew up a handy one-sheet outlining which QSR’s are lining up behind which meat alternatives. Check out the full piece for details, then go order a vegan combo meal.

Image: The Spoon.

Beefing up the portfolio

Big Food is going whole-hog on plant-based meat investment.

Tyson, the world’s second-largest meat processor, made headlines when they decided to invest in Beyond Meat. (It has since cut ties, but that’s a different story.) Major Canadian packaged meat company Maple Leaf Foods acquired vegan meat veterans Field Roast and Lightlife Foods and has plans to build the largest plant-based protein factory in North America. Late last year, Unilever snapped up Dutch startup the Vegetarian Butcher.

Photo: Before the Butcher.

This week that list got a little longer when the owners of Jensen Meat Company, a ground beef processor, acquired meatless meat startup Before the Butcher. It’s a textbook symbiotic relationship. Big Beef gets to diversify its portfolio and carve out a chunk of the white-hot alterna-meat market. Before the Butcher gains access to more capital and bigger production facilities, which can help the startup scale and differentiate itself in the crowded plant-based protein market.

Win, win. Expect to see quite a few more of these type of acquisitions coming around the curve. But also expect to see some consumer pushback against big meat companies coming in and sticking their noses (and pocketbooks) into the alterna-meat space.

Photo: Moving Mountains

Protein new ’round the web

  • Food tech startup JUST will soon start manufacturing their plant-based eggs in Asia for the first time, thanks to a partnership with South Korean egg producer GanongBio (h/t FoodNavigator).
  • Moving Mountains, the U.K.-based startup who makes a “bleeding” vegan burger, just added hot dogs to their lineup. A Washington Post reporter gave them a try and decided they cut the mustard.
  • Will oat and almond milk be usurped by the newest dairy alternative: water lentil milk? VegNews says maybe, but I say not until they can land on a more appetizing name.

Photo: Beyond Meat sausages and burgers.

In the spirit of research and summertime I grilled up a few Beyond Meat burger patties and sausage links last night. Look out for a meatless meat grilling guide coming at you soon.

Eat well,
Catherine

June 4, 2019

Which Fast Food Restaurants Serve Plant-Based Meat (or Are Thinking About It)?

Thanks to fast-food chains, meatless meats are no longer a niche product meant for vegetarians or vegans — they’re the norm. They’re making plant-based meat more affordable and accessible, and democratizing the alternative protein revolution.

Adopting meat alternatives is also a smart business play for QSR’s. Case and point: Del Taco and Burger King have reported sales increases in the months after they introduced plant-based meat options.

As alternative meats spread like wildfire onto fast-food menus, it can be hard to keep track of which chains have embraced meat alternatives and which are still mulling it over. To help straighten things out we decided to make a handy-dandy list showing which QSR’s in the U.S. and Canada have plant-based meat on their menus, what products they’re serving (Impossible Foods, Beyond Meat, other), and even which restaurants refuse to touch the stuff with a 10-foot pole.

Click on the photo below to enlarge.

Photo: The Spoon

But this list is just a high-level overview. If you want more context into the plant-based meat strategies behind some of the most widespread fast-food restaurants, we’ve laid that out below.

Impossible Foods

Photo: the Impossible Whopper at Burger King.

Burger King: On April 1 Burger King launched a Whopper made with plant-based Impossible Foods patties in select St. Louis locations. Just a month later, the fast-food chain announced it would begin rolling out the Impossible Whopper in all of its 7,300 locations nationwide by the end of the year. First stop(s): Miami, Florida; Columbus, Georgia; and Montgomery, Alabama.

White Castle: White Castle was kind of the trendsetter of fast-food restaurants embracing plant-based meat. In April 2018 the chain first started serving the Impossible Slider for $1.99 at select locations on the East Coast before rolling it out nationwide in September of that year.

Qdoba: The Mexican food chain began testing bowls and tacos made with ground Impossible “beef” in February of 2019. As of May 2019, the plant-based options are available at all Qdoba locations.

Little Caesar’s: The new Impossible Supreme pie — featuring Impossible Foods sausage, green peppers, mushrooms and caramelized onions — is available at select Little Caesar’s in Florida, New Mexico and Washington State. The pizza chain plans to expand it to all of their stores if it proves popular.

Red Robin: As of April 2019, diners can sub an Impossible patty for any burger at all 570 Red Robin locations.

Cheesecake Factory: The Impossible Burger hopped on select Cheesecake Factory menus in August 2018.

Umami Burger: Umami Burger currently sells four different Impossible burgers.

Hard Rock Cafe: As of January of this year, patrons can get an Impossible cheeseburger at select Hard Rock Cafe locations.

Beyond Meat

Photo: Beyond Meat x Del Taco.

Del Taco: The fast-food Mexican restaurant began offering Beyond Meat’s plant-based “beef” as a protein option on their tacos, burritos, and bowls in September 2018. As of this April, it’s available at all 580 locations across the U.S.

Tim Horton’s: The Canadian fast-food chain added Beyond Meat sausages to their menus last month. Customers can add the plant-based sausage patty to three of Tim Horton’s breakfast sandwiches.

Applebee’s: The Beyond Burger is available at select Applebee’s locations in NYC.

Carl’s Jr.: Beyond Meat’s first big play into the fast-food burger space was with Carl’s Jr. The Beyond Famous Star burger debuted on Carl’s Jr. menus in January of 2019 and quickly spread to all of its 1,000+ locations. (We did a taste test, if you’re interested.)

TGI Friday’s: The fast-casual restaurant began testing Beyond Burgers on its menus in 2017, rolling them out to all 469 locations in January of 2018.

A&W: In July of 2018 Canadian fast-food chain A&W began selling the Beyond Burger. It’s currently available at all of their 925 locations in Canada.

Dunkin’: In July of 2019 Dunkin’ locations in Manhattan began selling a Beyond Breakfast Sausage Sandwich, making it the first place in the U.S. to serve Beyond’s plant-based sausage patties.

Subway: Subway will start testing a Beyond Meatball Marinara sandwich at 685 locations in the U.S. and Canada for a limited time in September 2019. Beyond developed a meatball specifically for the partnership.

KFC: The fried chicken chain will start testing Beyond Meat chicken nuggets and wings at a location in suburban Atlanta for a limited time.

To Be Determined

Photo: Chick-Fil-A

Wendy’s, Pizza Hut, Dunkin’, Papa John’s: These chains are also rumored to be in talks with Impossible Foods to develop a plant-based menu option.

Chick-fil-A: Last month Chick-fil-A announced that it was exploring new vegan entrée options, including one made with realistic plant-based meat. Exactly what type of entrée is still TBD, but according to Chick-fil-A’s executive menu director, it might be “some type of alternative meat on a sandwich.”

Taco Bell: The fast-food chain has a relatively hefty vegetarian menu but no plant-based meat options as of yet. In London Taco Bell briefly experimented with a meatless ground beef option made from pulled oats, but seems to have taken it off the menu.

Starbuck’s: Though they have plenty of alternative milk options, Starbuck’s has yet to introduce a plant-based meat option to their breakfast, lunch or snack offerings.

McDonald’s: Ah, the White Whale. Despite the fact that all its competitors seem to embracing plant-based meat, McDonald’s is hanging back. At a recent shareholder meeting the fast-food giant stated that it would introduce an alterna-meat menu item once it was sure that there was sufficient consumer demand. Over in Germany, McDonald’s serves Nestlé’s “bleeding” plant-based Incredible burger.

 

No Way

Photo: Arby’s Meat Mountain sandwich.

Arby’s: When Arby’s president Rob Lynch heard rumors that the chain was looking into a plant-based menu option featuring Impossible “meat,” he panicked — and then set the record straight. He stated categorically that Arby’s has no plans to introduce any meatless meat options to its menu, now or in the future.

Have you tried meatless meat at any fast-food chains? Let us know what you thought in the comments below!

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