Plant-based meat is everywhere. Yet as fast food chains have begun to normalise vegetarian and vegan options on their menus, the big daddy of them all – McDonalds – has remained largely out of the game.
Earlier this year, it was announced that McDonalds would be trialling an all-new McVeggie burger in South Australia, with feedback on the burger set to help determine whether or not it would be rolled out throughout the rest of the country.
In Europe, the fast food chain has been introducing plant based options to their menus; ‘vegan’ chicken nuggets in Norway, the McVegan and El Veggo burgers in Finland, while the Vegetable Deluxe and spicy vegetable wraps are available in the UK.
A new investigation by CNBC has looked at the fast growing trend of alternative meat options in fast food, yielding some pretty interesting results.
They discovered that 86% of consumers of plant-based burgers were in fact omnivores. A growing obsession with protein intake and a simple desire to diversify diets has led to more non-vegans getting around the alternative options on menus.
Along with the desire for different burger options, we see how manufacturers are changing the way soy and plant-based protein recipes are being changed, so that the ‘fake meat’ has all the hallmarks of the real thing – including taste and ‘blood’.
Watch the full video:
