Will meat-free products redefine fast food in 2019?
- Neil Walker
- Jan 1, 2019
- 4 min read
Original article by Fielding Buck found here on www.pe.com
Can plant-based proteins bring home the bacon?
Restaurant experts think so. Sixty-four percent of chefs surveyed by the National Restaurant Association for its 2019 What’s Hot Culinary Survey expect plant-based burgers and sausages to become a top trend.
Products such as the Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat are already seeing big growth. They are part of a new generation of veggie burgers said to look and taste more like beef.
There’s a market for meatless menu items in fast food restaurants, and not just among vegetarians and vegans.
“A lot of folks are not necessarily getting their needs met in our category,” said Barry Westrum, chief marketing officer for Del Taco, a fast food chain with 560 restaurants in 14 states.
In a phone interview, he said Del Taco is going for “flexitarians” with its Beyond Taco, a menu item with Beyond Meat filling that is being tested throughout San Diego County and in a few locations in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties. To reach them, it’s using the hashtag #meatlessmondays on social media. Meatless Mondays is an initiative to reduce meat consumption that was founded in 2003 and now has a presence in 40 counties.
“We just have a lot of folks out there who on Thursday might have a regular Del Taco, but on Monday have a Beyond Taco because they are just trying to reduce the amount of meat in their diet.”
Plant Power, a San Diego-based chain with a long menu entirely free of animal products, sees a similar customer base.
“They’re omnivores just looking for alternatives, something that’s healthier, but something that’s also very tasty and familiar,” said Jeffrey Harris, Plant Power’s co-founder and chief marketing officer.
That’s what they’re getting at Del Taco, according to Westrum, who called Beyond Meat a “very easy substitution” for its ground beef and ground turkey filling.
Del Taco is one of Beyond Meat’s biggest partners, but in a news release Beyond Meat says it has been on the menu in more than 11,000 restaurants, including TGI Fridays, and sold in 12,000 grocery stores. In 2018, Beyond Meat said it went global with a presence on six continents.
Impossible Foods says it reached 5,000 restaurants in November and expects to be available in grocery stores in 2019.
One of its biggest partners is White Castle, a chain that created sliders nearly 100 years ago. It has nearly 400 restaurants in 13 states.
In Southern California, the Impossible Burger is the protein of choice at Monty’s Good Burger, which opened this year in Los Angeles’ Koreatown and the Riverside Food Lab, the City of Riverside’s first food hall.
Each of these brands has its own blend to simulate the look, taste and sizzle of beef. In Impossible Foods’ case it’s a substance called soy leghemoglobin, which is like ground beef protein but found in plants.
In Beyond Burgers, the protein comes from peas. “We found that their product when matched with our proprietary seasoning blend worked really, really well,” said Westrum of Del Taco.
Plant Power created its own proprietary patty. “It has a base of soy and a variety of secret ingredients that I can’t tell you about,” Harris said.
The company did it partly to create its own identity and partly to keep prices down.
The price of plants
Meals at meat-free fast food restaurants can cost substantially more than they do at established chains. A McDonald’s Big Mac, which has two beef patties and cheese, costs about $8 when purchased in a meal with fries and a soft drink.
Plant Power’s Big Zac, which has two protein patties and a cheese substitute, costs $8.95 for the sandwich alone and nearly $13 for a combo with fries and a drink.
At Monty’s Good Burger, a two-patty sandwich, fries and soft drink cost about $22.
It should be pointed out that McDonald’s serves Coca-Cola beverages while Monty’s serves its own craft sodas made with cane sugar and Plant Power serves soft drinks made with natural ingredients.
Del Taco’s Beyond Tacos cost $2.49, a dollar more than the chain’s tacos with ground beef filling.
Westrum said one of the purposes of the test is to see if demand justifies the price point.
Still, he believes there is an untapped market of people trying to eat less meat, and he wants Del Taco to get their business. He said the company is communicating with members of the vegetarian and vegan communities on menus, and ways to move forward.
“We think that this is just the beginning.”
So does Harris, who thinks Plant Power has the chance to dominate an emerging market.
What’s in a name?
Plant Power opened its first restaurant in San Diego in 2016, followed by a second in Ocean Beach. Its third, in Redlands, opened in August and has been the most successful yet. Ocean Beach does $2.3 million in business a year, he said, and Redlands is on track to net $4 million.
A fourth location is slated to open in Long Beach early next year.
“We believe this is an extraordinary market opportunity,” he said. “We think we have something that’s very authentic. We think that if we get there quick we’ll have a chance to sustain our growth and really be something special.”
Time may be short. Prognosticators such as Forbes are seeing a new trend on the horizon for 2019: lab-grown or “cell-cultured meat.”
Israel-based Aleph Farms made the claim last week that it has grown the first slaughter-free minute steak from cow cells. An article in The Times of Israel raised the issue of whether lab-growth steak could be kosher, or even called meat.
While U.S. government agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration grapple with the latter issue, business people are trying to figure out if the public will accept lab-grown meat.
Bill Gates seems to be willing to take a chance. The Microsoft founder has put money in a company called Memphis Meats, as he did in Beyond Meat.
Comments