McDonald’s meatless burgers fail to fire in US

Shares of Beyond Meat fell 6 percent after J.P. Morgan said McDonald’s had ended its U.S. test of the McPlant burger, which uses Beyond’s meatless patties.

The fast-food giant confirmed to CNBC that the McPlant test concluded as planned. Neither McDonald’s nor Beyond Meat has announced any plans for additional testing or a nationwide launch.

Beyond Meat’s stock has fallen 53% this year, dragging its market value down to $2.06 billion. Wall Street has become sceptical over the company’s long-term growth opportunities as grocery sales lag. Moreover, says CNBC, partnerships with restaurant giants like Pizza Hut owner Yum Brands and McDonald’s haven’t progressed to many permanent nationwide menu offerings yet. 

TastingTable reports that over the past year, it seemed that vegan alternatives to fast food burgers would become a new staple. Burger King, for example, introduced the Impossible Whopper and McDonald's began testing the McPlant in select American markets soon after. The McPlant — with its Beyond Meat patty — met reasonable success in foreign markets like Denmark, the United Kingdom, and Austria, so hopes were high.

But Peter Saleh, an analyst at financial services firm BTIG, told QSR Magazine in March that ‘Franchisee sentiment on the sales performance was underwhelming. Their assessment was that they don't see enough evidence to support a national rollout in the near future.’ At that point, US franchises were reportedly only selling 20 McPlants per day, which was well short of the target of 40-60 McPlants per day.

Restaurant Business News raised another issue — that many test sites were in rural areas, while the demographic most interested in non-meat burgers was in urban communities. McDonald's argument is that for them to alter their kitchen setup, the product has to have a broad appeal.

Did McDonald’s miss the market? An article in The Takeout says that since there is cheese on the McPlant, vegans won't want it, so there wasn't a consumer base to become rapidly attached to the product. 'Once the novelty of it wore off, it became like every other gimmicky food offering: forgotten and unwanted,’ the article suggests.

Talking on RNZ on 9 August, business journalist Rebecca Stevenson looked at the problems facing the plant-based meat firms, including the logistical problems facing Beyond Meats as it tried to create a non-meat pepperoni in a process that involved preparing the product across two continents.

The McPlant has not been launched in New Zealand, although it is available across the Tasman in 270 stores in Victoria in a trial which started in July 2022. However, a vegan website reported that Australia’s version is not suitable for vegans. ‘The burger will still include the Beyond Meat patty, however, it will be cooked on the same grill as its meat counterparts. Additionally, the product will include egg-based mayonnaise and dairy cheese. Only in the UK is the product 100% vegan.'

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