American Fortune 500 fast-food restaurant company Yum China has partnered with plant-based meat producer Beyond Meat to launch meat-free burgers at selected restaurants in China for a limited time.Â
The restaurants in question are KFC, which will be offering the burgers as a three-day limited-time offering at their Beijing, Chengdu, Hangzhou, and Shanghai locations starting on June 3. Pizza Hut will be testing a combo set including the Beyond Burger and an Australian sirloin steak burger at six restaurants in Shanghai from 8-11 June. And Taco Bell will be offering their taco recipe made with the plant-based batty at three Shanghai chains from 3-10 June.
Beyond Meat founder and CEO, Ethan Brown says ‘I’m excited about what this launch means in terms of together being of service to the Chinese consumer as they seek out the nutritional and environmental benefits of our delicious plant-based meats.
‘More generally, our partnership with Yum China and the iconic brands of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell is an encouraging and important milestone toward increased accessibility to our plant-based meat globally.’
This is not the first time that mainstream fast-food chains have offered plant-based alternatives to their coveted products as you can find Beyond Meat products in Subway, Whole Foods, and Costco in the US. The vegan meat producers also signed a deal with coffeehouse company Starbucks to add their ‘beef’ to their vegetarian pasta dishes and salads in China as well.
Yum China has already tested selling plant-based alternatives in China with KFC testing alternative meat chicken nuggets supplied by Cargill. In contrast, Taco Bell has tested meat-free pork tacos in Shanghai.
