LucretiusNaturale wrote:Green RT wrote:LucretiusNaturale wrote:Seems that meat alternatives won't make a dent until several major fast food chains truly commit to it. If this doesn't happen, it will remain as a niche choice, not reach enough of a mainstream point to make a difference.
I don't understand. haven't all of the major hamburger fast food joints started offering vegetarian burgers.
I think McDonald's discontinued the McPlant test. The fast food places need to be careful not to market them as vegan as they aren't. The goal should be reduce meat consumption some, not directly market as vegan/vegetarian.
I wonder how much of that is because strangely for a corporate entity, one as seeped in the market as McDonald's are, they didn't realise just how irrationally anti-vegan much of the US is?
I've been vegetarian for 31 years this December; moral rather than health or environmental reasons, indeed I've watched as those arguments went from absolutely outside the mainstream to pretty accepted in the UK. Environmentalists were weird hippies, and health issues were seen as whacko David Icke cultist belief still back in the 90s... and so egetarian food was either cheese-on-something or, as the famous Simpson's skit goes, making friends with salad. It just wasn't popular or acceptable enough for anyone to bother putting any thought into their menu; Being even vegetarian back then was hard and you really had to set out to commit to veganism to make it work, which set you apart from society in behaviour.
However we didn't have the odd American obsession with defining ourselves by excessive consumption of meat; whilst the Sunday Roast is a staple of British culture, yet despite being derided as les rosbif on the continent for it, there's still something here which left enough space to make the change. I'm not sure I could say what it was, maybe the odd British sentimentality towards animals (we don't make heroes of ranchers certainly) or a lingering resentment of people who show off too much (meat is for Sundays, eating it every day is class traitorism) ... or perhaps we just didn't want to be too much like Americans? Cultural snobbishness? It's an interesting topic for social historians.
What ever it was, eating outside of meat slowly became acceptable here; the Quorn mentioned in this article? Massively popular in the UK, especially because after the 90s health concerns really took off, and eating it was just obviously healthier than constant meat consumption. There may also be an influence with the rising Asian market, people from Pakistan/India and especially now, Chinese immigrants to the UK, where Tofu was already widely used and liked; And with it, a huge range of new tastes and flavours came which has opened up the market and made the terms Vegetarian/Vegan acceptable here. To the point that, when Burger King introduced their plant based whopper discussed here too, the news coverage was not about the evils of not eating meat, but that it wasn't vegetarian enough because it shared the grill with the meat. Interestingly, when I went to grab a link to prove that, I also found that 1 in every 3 Whoppers sold in Belgium is vegetarian
So I can imagine the confused faces in corporate when they turn to the American market... and you're still resisting even the terms themselves; Quorn though is actually expanding during the current recession in Europe, and now works directly with KFC. I've tried their Vegan burger by the way, you're paying for the sauce and salts and bun really, you can buy the same chicken Quorn in any supermarket. And many people do, simply because it's close enough and so, so much healthier.
But like Rolling Coal and Gun Rights etc, there's just something stubbornly self destructive about American culture which wants to do something because it's bad for you...? I don't want to sound dismissive or a snob, but from Europe it really doesn't make any sense to us. What, you're afraid if you eat mushrooms you'll end up with a tiny little mushroom penis and Stormy Daniels will laugh about it?
But if you eat it all the same, the companies will come to you. Oh, McDonalds aren't trialling it because they care about you, but because they wanted to see if you were ready to make the cultural shift, and they could then make the kind of profits they see in Europe from that shift. Under a capitalist system, where you spend your money is often the most influential vote you have; I'd boycotted McDs since the 90s thanks to the McLibel case but every now and then today, I pop in for their McPlant burger, because I want to encourage them to keep making the change; and McDonalds have noticed.
Quote:“Of course, we’ve also introduced new menu innovations to satisfy changing customer tastes and preferences which is exactly what’s happening now with McPlant,” said McDonald’s Chief Executive Chris Kempczinski during the early Thursday earnings call, according to a FactSet transcript.
“After a successful pilot in the U.K., beginning in January, we made it available across all restaurants in the U.K. and Ireland. As I’ve said before, when customers are ready for McPlant, we’ll be ready for them.”
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