KFC NOT MEAT OPTION

In what may seem to be the biggest boost for a growing trend, KFC have decided to add plant based meat to its menu.

KFC will not be the first major food franchise to be embarking on this exercise, other major chains like McDonald’s, Burger King and Dunkins are already experimenting with the meatless option, due to huge customer demands associated with a desire to reduce consumption of animal based protein.

The chains previously mentioned, who have already adopted the meatless option, have primarily substituted pork and beef. However, KFC is the first major franchise to add imitation meat to its menu.

The imitation fried chicken will be supplied to KFC by Beyond Meat, a Los Angeles based company, valued at about $5 billion after its May IPO. The product is 80 calories per piece and looks a bit like a fried chicken nugget, with a sinewy texture designed to feel like chicken. It will be available next month in dozens of stores in and around Nashville, Tennessee, and Charlotte, North Carolina, the companies said.

A KFC release stated, it would take what it learns from those markets to better understand how offering the imitation chicken will play out throughout the USA.

Beyond Meat Chief Executive Ethan Brown said in an interview, “Creating a muscle-like, fibrous texture is very important when imitating chicken, because that’s what people have come to expect when they bite into a piece of meat”.

Here in Trinidad and Tobago, some meat lovers are expressing scepticism over animal meat replacement. Some indicating that it will never be the same. One female chicken lover said, “No bone? Then it’s not chicken”.

This option has not yet been identified for the local KFC market.