Kentucky Fried Chicken bets on Beyond Meat's "fake" chicken

The KFC fast food chain rides on the success of the vegetable-based meat of the startup Beyond Meat to experiment with a new version of its iconic fried chicken

(Photo: Photo by Aleks Dorohovich on Unsplash) Success does not stop of "fake" meat. After the first experiments, the American fast food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken renews the collaboration with Beyond Meat to produce its classic fried chicken but with vegetable based meat. From next week Beyond Fried Chicken, vegan alternative to its flagship dish, will be available in over fifty KFC restaurants in California in the cities of Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego.

In this case too of a local experimentation while stocks last to monitor the sales trend, so as to then evaluate the possible inclusion of the vegetable-based chicken in the menus of all the chain stores in the United States, where Kfc has over 4 thousand more restaurants of 50 states.

But by KFC this is not the only intervention planned to modernize its fried chicken. The fast food chain has recently entered into an agreement with the Russian company active in the biotechnology sector 3D Bioprinting Solutions to recreate its famous chicken nuggets in the laboratory from animal cells and plant material.

For its part , for Beyond Meat the renewal of this collaboration adds to the many that the company already has with the main fast food chains in the United States and around the world. In recent years, in fact, the vegetable meat giant has conquered, for example, the alternative menus of McDonald's, Dunkin and even Starbucks, for the breakfast sandwich sector, competing for the record with the rival Impossible Foods, which distributes its hamburgers of fake meat in Burger King restaurants.

so Much interest in these alternative vegetable to meat is justified for the incredible expansion known from this market, that in just ten years has managed to arrive at the total value of more than $ 100 billion . And Beyond Meat, a company that is listed on the Stock exchange a little over a year ago, only in the first quarter of 2020 has posted net revenues of a 97.1 million , an increase of 141% compared to the same period of 2019, and has reported earnings for $ 1.8 million .

Also, the startup company in california is expanding also in Europe not only with its burger, but also with the production, since last month announced the acquisition of a new production site in the city of Enschede , in the Netherlands, which could be operational by the end of 2020 .