Author Topic: Plant-based Beyond Burger comes to Carl's Jr. restaurants  (Read 4517 times)

rcjordan

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Re: Plant-based Beyond Burger comes to Carl's Jr. restaurants
« Reply #15 on: March 03, 2019, 05:20:55 PM »
<update>

Quote
Carl’s Jr. recently added a plant-based burger, the Beyond Famous Star, to its lineup.

Ordered with cheese, it has more than 700 calories.

Bigger, Saltier, Heavier: Fast Food Since 1986 in 3 Simple Charts - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/03/business/fast-food-health-salt-calories-portions.html

ergophobe

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Re: Plant-based Beyond Burger comes to Carl's Jr. restaurants
« Reply #16 on: March 03, 2019, 08:57:58 PM »
Tried a couple of Beyond Burgers while out East. I still haven't seen them in California. It was okay, but nothing dramatic. My wife says it tastes pretty much like beef.

I have no recollection of what a beef hamburger tastes like, so I can't comment, but if that's what beef tastes like, I'm happy to take a pass on it (I mean it was fine, just nothing special).

>>Calories

That's one thing I remember from the Mindless Eating book. He tells of being in an antique shop and someone was buying a set of salad plates from the 1930s and asked if they had the dinner plates to match. The proprietor had to explain that in the 1930s, those *were* dinner plates. Yes, people are more sedentary today than in the 1930s and that's a lot of it, but food has gotten insanely cheap and we eat a lot of it

rcjordan

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Re: Plant-based Beyond Burger comes to Carl's Jr. restaurants
« Reply #17 on: March 07, 2019, 12:21:31 AM »
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Beyond Meat is produced with a blend of pea, mung bean, and rice proteins that offers similar nutritional value with just a quarter of the fat. It actually has more protein than traditional beef; the company says a single serving contains 20 grams.


Beyond Meat's Ground Beef Substitute to Arrive in Stores this Year | Digital Trends
https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/beyond-meat-beyond-beef/

rcjordan

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Re: Plant-based Beyond Burger comes to Carl's Jr. restaurants
« Reply #18 on: August 31, 2019, 04:55:02 PM »

ergophobe

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Re: Plant-based Beyond Burger comes to Carl's Jr. restaurants
« Reply #19 on: August 31, 2019, 05:37:45 PM »
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Traditional beef Whopper sales have also increased since the Impossible Whopper launched.

This is a point I've tried to make to restauranteurs. One told me they took the vegetarian item off the menu because it didn't sell that well. I tried to explain to him that vegetarians do not dine alone and their companions are not all that likely to be vegetarian. So while I went to his restaurant with three non-vegetarians, I would *never* return. He lost his chance to get me back. And when I don't return, that means I go somewhere else with three non-vegetarians. So having a veg item on the menu brings in more sales than can be accounted for by the sales of that one item.

That sounds confrontational. It was a friendly conversation. He asked if everything was okay with our meal and I explained this to him in a friendly way. He said he wished I had spoken to him earlier because he would have gladly accommodated me (but when I asked the waiter if there was *anything* they had that was vegetarian, he had said no).

rcjordan

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Re: Plant-based Beyond Burger comes to Carl's Jr. restaurants
« Reply #20 on: September 01, 2019, 04:18:03 PM »
KFC's plant-based 'chicken' sold out in five hours
https://www.engadget.com/2019/08/27/kfc-beyond-fried-chicken-popular/

hhh. From another article:

"ravenous hordes of vegetarians descended upon one Atlanta franchise to try the company's new chickenless nuggets, locusting through the stock of very-nearly-poultry in just a few hours."

ergophobe

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Re: Plant-based Beyond Burger comes to Carl's Jr. restaurants
« Reply #21 on: September 01, 2019, 04:45:18 PM »
Damn those ravenous hordes of vegetarians. Very dangerous folk.

ergophobe

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Re: Plant-based Beyond Burger comes to Carl's Jr. restaurants
« Reply #22 on: September 01, 2019, 04:53:54 PM »
This is starting to remind me of smoking in coffee shops when I was in grad school. I kept telling the managers that they would have more customers if they had smaller smoking sections with better ventilation and they kept telling me that people like to have a smoke after a coffee. "Look around, everyone in here is smoking." I would say, "Right, but I would be here 10x more often if it wasn't full of smoke."

So I go to Switzerland and come back and every single coffee shop on State Street is 100% non-smoking. What happened? One cafe remodeled and the owner noticed when they repainted how disgusting the ceiling was and, since she was going to add original art, she didn't want it ruined and decided to go non-smoking even if it cost her business. Within a month, there was a line for tables and other coffee shops were struggling - they immediately lost all their non-smoking customers. Within six months, all of the major college coffee shops in Madison were non-smoking.

I would say it's still to early to tell here. This could be a novelty bump that will go away. But maybe not. In families with one vegetarian, if they go fast food now (or last year), they were basically stuck with Taco Bell. If same-store sales are up every time someone adds a veggie burger, I think there may in a couple of years be few places that do not offer an alternative.

That said, for the reasons mentioned above, that might lead to them selling *more* meat, not less. And it will be interesting to see what happens to Taco Bell, traditionally the only vegetarian-friendly fast food restaurant.
« Last Edit: September 01, 2019, 04:57:00 PM by ergophobe »

rcjordan

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Re: Plant-based Beyond Burger comes to Carl's Jr. restaurants
« Reply #23 on: September 01, 2019, 05:08:29 PM »
>Within a month, there was a line for tables and other coffee shops were struggling - they immediately lost all their non-smoking customers. Within six months, all of the major college coffee shops in Madison were non-smoking.

Same sort of thing happened here in NC restaurants and we were a Big Tobacco state.  Owners swore that business would suffer if they didn't allow smoking. Within a few months of having non-smoking sections the non-smokers crowded out the smokers.  (Owners also noticed that smoking-related chores were a PITA.)

>bump

I don't think it's a bump ...Millenials & younger are here to stay.  Besides, there are some pretty well-documented health concerns with red meat.

nffc

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Re: Plant-based Beyond Burger comes to Carl's Jr. restaurants
« Reply #24 on: September 01, 2019, 05:54:17 PM »
By all accounts the plant based burgers aren't any "healthier" than the meat ones. I think that's the bridge to cross, "healthier" would be good, "healthy" would be a one way door.

rcjordan

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Re: Plant-based Beyond Burger comes to Carl's Jr. restaurants
« Reply #25 on: September 01, 2019, 06:30:27 PM »
>plant based burgers aren't any "healthier"

If you've looked at the sodium content in these, you'd see one reason why.

But, facts aside, red meat has boogeyman status here.

ergophobe

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Re: Plant-based Beyond Burger comes to Carl's Jr. restaurants
« Reply #26 on: September 01, 2019, 10:29:00 PM »
By all accounts the plant based burgers aren't any "healthier" than the meat ones.

My reasons for not eating meat are primarily based on the environmental impact of raising and harvesting animals and the cruelty of factory farming (which is why I'm more comfortable with hunted venison than with a Big Mac, except of course wild-caught food leads to extermination if not done sustainably). So I actually don't care whether or not it's "healthier" and at least among the vegetarians and vegans I know, few if any believe it is healthier for themselves (for the planet as a general rule, though there are exceptions of course, but not for themselves).

So if your goal as Burger King is to convert meat eaters, then you may need to make the case that it's healthier or tastes better or whatever. If your goal is to provide an opportunity so that a family of five with one vegetarian could still go to your establishment, your threshold is different. You just have to reach a level where people feel reasonably comfortable that it's not absolutely toxic.

So you don't have to beat organic grass-fed beef. You have to beat Doritos.