18 votes

KFC to sell Beyond Meat's plant-based 'fried chicken' in the southern US

11 comments

  1. [6]
    vord
    Link
    I've not been impressed with Beyond Meat's products so far. Every time I've tried them it's tremendously worse than real meat. Impossible has been much better so far. I've had the Impossible...

    I've not been impressed with Beyond Meat's products so far. Every time I've tried them it's tremendously worse than real meat.

    Impossible has been much better so far. I've had the Impossible Whopper and it was definitely a reasonable substitute for fast-food applications.

    8 votes
    1. Deimos
      Link Parent
      A couple of days ago, Tim Hortons pulled all Beyond Meat products from the last two provinces in Canada it was still offering them:...

      A couple of days ago, Tim Hortons pulled all Beyond Meat products from the last two provinces in Canada it was still offering them: https://www.reuters.com/article/beyond-meat-tim-hortons/tim-hortons-pulls-beyond-meat-products-from-ontario-british-columbia-idUSL4N29Y08U

      That's one of the most widespread fast-food/coffee-shop franchises in Canada, so an apparent failure with it there doesn't look very good.

      4 votes
    2. wexx
      Link Parent
      Yeah, I've been vegan for ~5 years and the Beyond Burger is just... way too far up the wrong side of the uncanny valley. Impossible is.. .better than that I guess (If given a choice, I'd pick...

      Yeah, I've been vegan for ~5 years and the Beyond Burger is just... way too far up the wrong side of the uncanny valley. Impossible is.. .better than that I guess (If given a choice, I'd pick impossible). I've always preferred a more traditional veggie burger/patty, I guess. There's just more variety and comparison than everywhere having the beyond burger... which I'm definitely not complaining about, it just gets a little frustrating when places go from having no options to having my (personal) least favorite option.

      The KFC option, like the burger king impossible burger is likely going to be fine/do well enough, but I personally will only use it as a convenience option when I can't plan ahead and bring leftovers or something easy, or go somewhere else.

      4 votes
    3. zigzagzig
      Link Parent
      Their hot sausages are the best to me, everything else has been meh.

      Their hot sausages are the best to me, everything else has been meh.

      3 votes
    4. kfwyre
      Link Parent
      I agree. I've cut out most meat from my diet and red meat entirely, and I flat out love the Impossible Whopper. It tastes and feels like I'm eating a burger. Not a great one, mind you, but with...

      I agree. I've cut out most meat from my diet and red meat entirely, and I flat out love the Impossible Whopper. It tastes and feels like I'm eating a burger. Not a great one, mind you, but with real beef off the table for me, I'll gladly take even a halfway decent substitute.

      Beyond Meat has failed to hit that same bar for me. I've had it twice, from two different places, and each one has had something off about it that I wasn't able to really put my finger on. My taste buds spent the meals interrogating the foods more than they did enjoying them.

      3 votes
    5. patience_limited
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      I've never liked most ground meat products, particularly burgers - the texture was just unpleasant to me. I hadn't eaten fast food other than Chipotle in years just because most of the options...

      I've never liked most ground meat products, particularly burgers - the texture was just unpleasant to me. I hadn't eaten fast food other than Chipotle in years just because most of the options were both unhealthy and unappetizingly gritty ground beef or pork sausage. [TVP meat substitutes aren't pleasant in texture, either, but Chinese wheat gluten products are great, if you don't think of them as imitation meat.]

      The funny thing is, I found the Impossible Whopper appealing precisely because the texture is less bothersome than an actual meat patty. It's not healthier, but it has that exactly right combination of slight chewiness, grilled Maillard reaction flavors, faint iron tang, salt, fat, sweet, and crunch.

      1 vote
  2. [2]
    patience_limited
    Link
    More details here and here. The Fast Company article gets bonus points for making me permanently waste a neuron on the idea of a "chicken tesseract" - well-played, that. There's certainly demand...

    More details here and here. The Fast Company article gets bonus points for making me permanently waste a neuron on the idea of a "chicken tesseract" - well-played, that.

    There's certainly demand for plant-based meat-substitute products, but the initial marketing through fast food chains is troubling.

    The products themselves undergo extensive processing to create meat-like textures and flavors; the resulting "meat" has unhealthy amounts of added salt and refined fats.

    Beyond Meat's "chicken strips" were discontinued, as they were barely tolerable without the recognizable coating of fried batter and proprietary seasonings in KFC products. As one of my culinary instructors memorably said, "You can deep-fry a rat's ass and they'll eat it up."

    6 votes
    1. skybrian
      Link Parent
      It's certainly true that frying food makes anything taste better and it's not very healthy. But I don't see this as all that nefarious? It's the logical place to start for a company marketing a...

      It's certainly true that frying food makes anything taste better and it's not very healthy. But I don't see this as all that nefarious? It's the logical place to start for a company marketing a meat substitute.

      If you are willing to try different foods, there are lots of healthy alternatives. But the whole point with a meat substitute is to taste as good as meat to people who like meat. It's the only thing that makes these companies different.

      If they can succeed at that, healthier versions could be introduced later.

      4 votes
  3. [3]
    acdw
    Link
    This is cool, but KFC is one of the worst fast food chains re the environment and actual chicken welfare. They use virgin wood for their bucket paper and the cheapest, most poorly treated chicken....

    This is cool, but KFC is one of the worst fast food chains re the environment and actual chicken welfare. They use virgin wood for their bucket paper and the cheapest, most poorly treated chicken. I won't be doing business with them regardless of their menu.

    6 votes
    1. [2]
      patience_limited
      Link Parent
      It's cool in the sense that the methadone of heavily processed imitation meat may help very carnivorous people wean themselves from the heroin of three meat meals a day. But that doesn't mean...

      It's cool in the sense that the methadone of heavily processed imitation meat may help very carnivorous people wean themselves from the heroin of three meat meals a day.

      But that doesn't mean life-long use of methadone is good for you. For plant-based meat substitutes to succeed, they'll need to have healthy nutrition profiles not too dissimilar from the plants they originate as. However, that's not the business fast food companies are in; they're trying to foster food addictions, and the cheaper the ingredients, the better.

      8 votes
      1. acdw
        Link Parent
        I love the metaphor of methadone here! Thanks for that. You're absolutely right about health, but the plant based stuff is at least better for the planet.

        I love the metaphor of methadone here! Thanks for that. You're absolutely right about health, but the plant based stuff is at least better for the planet.

        3 votes