Fast Food

MUSE MAGAZINE The Future of

Fast Food

56 On July 9th 2018, A&W became the first national burger chain in Canada to sell Beyond Meat. At the time, it was simply an innovative attempt to stay relevant. Customers bought 900,000 burgers in the first three days and A&W sold out nation-wide in a matter of weeks. Now, this date marks a defining moment in the fast food industry — a shift in our definition of protein. The Beyond Meat Burger is “the world’s first plant-based burger that looks, cooks and satisfies like beef.” It is made mainly from pea protein, while its slightly younger competitor, the Impossible Burger, is soy-based. Ethan Brown and Patrick O’Reilly Brown, the respective founders of Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, share not only a last name, but also a passion to eliminate our reliance on meat in an effort to counteract climate change, alleviate the stress on our resources, and improve animal welfare. The Beyond Meat Burger uses 99% less water, 93% less land, 90% fewer greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) and 46% less energy compared to a typical quarter pounder. A large portion of the remaining resources is a result of its plastic packaging. The Impossible Burger - not yet sold in Canada - is similar, with 87% less water, 96% less land and 89% fewer GHGE. Why is this significant? According to the United

Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), animal agriculture causes more GHGE than the entire transportation sector. Like it or not, meat is obnoxiously inefficient: it uses 80% of our agricultural land and yet accounts for only 18% of the world’s calories. To prevent the environmental degradation caused by animal agriculture from worsening, we need to halve our current meat production, yet global meat consumption is predicted to increase by 76% by 2050. The world is not going to go plant-based overnight. Still, meatless meats are no longer a vegetarian niche, they’re quickly becoming mainstream with experts predicting the market for alternative proteins could reach $140 billion by 2029. This represents almost half of today’s global beef market. Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods do not consider vegetarians and vegans (a group that represents approximately 9.4% of Canadians and 8% of Americans) to be their main customers. In fact, both companies have alienated this segment. Often the patties are cooked on the same grill as animal meat and Impossible Food used animals for food safety testing. Their real target market? Flexitarians. So far, they’ve been successful: 95% of Beyond Meat’s customers also purchased a beef burger within the last

By Taylor Ball

Fast Food

year. “Whether you’re a hard-core carnivore or strict vegan, you should be able to have our burgers, enjoy what you’re eating and feel great afterward,” said Brown, Beyond Meat’s CEO. By marketing their products as ‘plant-based’ rather than ‘vegan’, they can appeal to a much larger segment of conscious consumers who may be intimidated by the severity of veganism. To remain relevant, quick service restaurants across North America are positioning themselves as sellers of “high-quality protein” rather than “meat”. After A&W’s plant-based success, Burger King, Tim Hortons, Subway, KFC and countless others have followed suit. McDonald’s, the world’s largest fast food chain, was openly skeptical. In response to A&W, they promoted enhanced versions of their meaty Big Mac and said they had “no intention to offer meat alternatives anytime soon”. Ironically, McDonald’s was the first restaurant chain to commit to science-based targets to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 36% by 2030, blatantly ignoring the potential to do so through vegan alternatives. Even a fast food giant as big as the Golden Arches cannot deny the power of plant-protein. On September 30th 2019, McDonald’s launched the P.L.T. (plant, lettuce, tomato) burger as part of a 12-week trial of Beyond Meat in Canada.

57 Unlike its competition, McDonald’s seems to want Beyond Meat to fail: “it costs $6.49 CAD, nearly triple the cost of a regular hamburger and even more expensive than a Big Mac.” McDonald’s sees Beyond Meat as a healthier option that would not appeal to their core customer. Let’s not sugar coat it, Beyond Meat is still a highly processed junk food. Yes, it has no cholesterol and slightly fewer calories, but it also has more salt and “it’s odd to talk about any version of [a burger] as a health food.” Both Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat are on a mission to either replace or redefine the need for livestock in order to impact climate change. But people will not buy a plant-based burger because they want to save the planet, “they’re going to buy it because it’s tasty alternative to beef that competes on price” (save McDonald’s). The director of GoodFood Institute, a nonprofit that supports meat substitutes, “doesn’t foresee the complete replacement of meat, but compares the transformation on the order of cell phones replacing landlines. This plant-based revolution is only beginning. Beyond Meat is sure to bring home the bacon with their next big product: plant-based steak. “We are already at work making whole cuts” says CEO Brown.