KFC Launches Meatless Fried Chicken Across the US

By Daniel S. Levine

KFC is joining the fast food trend of brining meatless options to menus. On Monday, the chain will add Beyond Meat's plant-based chicken to menus around the country after years of testing the product regionally. Beyond Meat and KFC worked together to create a chicken meat substitute that tastes like whole muscle chicken instead of ground-up nuggets.

The plant-based chicken was introduced at Atlanta restaurants in August 2019, and they sold out in just a few hours. KFC also tested the product in Nashville, Charlotte, and southern California two years ago, reports CNBC. Now, the Beyond Fried Chicken will be available nationwide on Monday, Jan. 10 for a limited time. It will be available in six-piece or 12-piece orders, with the six-piece order starting at $6.99. Dipping sauce is included in each order. KFC is notably not marketing the product to vegans or vegetarians directly since it will be made with the same equipment used for KFC's regular fried chicken.

KFC believes now is the best time to start selling meatless chicken because many Americans are trying to start the new year with healthier choices. "This is really about where the customer is going; they want to eat more plant-based proteins," KFC U.S. President Kevin Hochman told CNBC. "It's January, so it's a time of New Year's resolutions and wanting to do something different in your diet."

The chain and Beyond Meat are sure restaurants will have enough product to support the demand, despite the COVID-19 pandemic and Omicron variant surge. "From a supply perspective, we feel really good about it, and it's something we have experience with in initial trials," Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown told CNBC. Yum! Brands, which owns KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut, signed a partnership with Beyond Meat to develop other meatless products, like a plant-based carne asada for Taco Bell.

The Beyond Fried Chicken rollout is the largest of meatless products so far and is a sign that the fast-food industry is still interested in putting these options on the menu despite some trouble. Dunkin' recently dropped its Beyond sausage at several locations, and Little Caesar's Impossible sausage trial wasn't successful. However, Chipotle recently announced it will try out a veggie chorizo it developed in-house this week.

"Will there be blips when there's an onset of a pandemic? Of course," Hochman told Vox. "We do think that ultimately this idea of more and more plant-based protein being consumed is a fait accompli. It's going to happen, it's really about when." 

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