Beyond Chicken? KFC to Serve Up Plant-Based Meals

By Cara Murez and Robin Foster

HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Jan. 6, 2022 (HealthDay News) — First, there was Beyond Meat. Next up? Beyond Fried Chicken.

KFC introduced Wednesday that it’s going to start providing a plant-based rooster in a few of its meals on Jan. 10, from the identical firm identified for its meat-free burgers, Beyond Meat.

Beyond Fried Chicken was developed by Beyond Meat solely for KFC, in keeping with a information launch from KFC. It was initially supplied in 2019 at one Atlanta restaurant earlier than increasing to a few states and now to 4,000 eating places across the nation.

Customers can get their plant-based rooster as a part of a combo meal or a la carte in six- or 12-piece orders.

“The mission from day one was easy — make the world-famous Kentucky Fried Chicken from crops,” Kevin Hochman, president of KFC U.S., mentioned within the launch. “And now over two years later we are able to say, ‘Mission completed.'”

Yum Brands owns each KFC and Taco Bell, which can also be working with Beyond Meat to create some merchandise for these eateries, in keeping with CBS News. Beyond Meat just lately employed two former executives from Tyson Foods, an organization identified for its rooster.

“We could not be prouder to associate with KFC to supply a best-in-class product that not solely delivers the scrumptious expertise customers anticipate from this iconic chain, but in addition gives the added advantages of plant-based meat,” Ethan Brown, founder and CEO of Beyond Meat, mentioned within the launch. “We are actually thrilled to make it out there to customers nationwide.”

There has been an elevated demand for plant-derived meals, with main chains together with McDonald’s and Starbucks partnering with Beyond Meat and competitor Impossible Foods to supply further choices, CBS News reported. On Monday, Chipotle started providing plant-based chorizo for a restricted time.

“It’s now not fringe for a corporation to be doing this — it is changing into mainstream, and extra are seeing it as a necessity” to supply plant-based choices, Sean Cash advised the Washington Post. He’s an economist with the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University in Boston.

Continued

And the development shouldn’t be confined to eating places, Cash added. As the pandemic pushed customers to prepare dinner and eat at house, extra meat alternate options have been out there in some grocery shops. Also, provide chain points with conventional meats might have led customers to strive alternate options.

Fast meals chains are “concentrating on the nonetheless comparatively small however quickly rising section of the inhabitants desirous about plant-based alternate options to meat, which is more and more understood to be probably dangerous to well being and the atmosphere,” Marion Nestle, a professor emerita of vitamin, meals research and public well being at New York University, advised the Post.

Companies “should suppose there’s a marketplace for plant-based alternate options and need to carry individuals who need these alternate options into their shops,” Nestle added.

More info

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has extra info on vegetarian-based diets.

SOURCES: KFC, information launch, Jan. 5, 2022; CBS News; Washington Post

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