McDonald’s Canada is testing a hamburger based on vegetables, again.
The fast food chain announced on Tuesday that it will test its new MCVEGGIE in some restaurants in Langley, Richmond and Surrey, BC, as well as Brampton and Windsor, Ontario, and Dieppe, Moncton, RiverView and Sussex, NB, until April 14.
The sandwich, which will come in regular and spicy habaner varieties, has an empanada empanada made of carrots, green beans, zucchini, peas, soybeans, broccoli and corn. A roasted sesame bread comes and is covered with lettuce and grated sauce.
The dish is the last attempt by McDonald’s Canada in customers to cut customers without interest or cannot consume popular basic products such as Big Mac.
The previous attempts to serve vegetarians have not been successful, leaving the company’s part of the company’s menu full of beef options and poultry, but little for those who do not eat meat.
The most recent menu element in the chain before Mcveggie was the plant, lettuce and tomato or PLT.
The sandwich made with a Beyond Meat Patty plant was tested in September 2019 in 28 restaurants, predominantly in London, Ontario. Later it expanded to 52 locations covering the neighboring Kitchener-Waterloo and Guelph in a 12-week trial as of January 2020.
“That was not exactly what consumers are looking for,” admitted marketing director Francesca Cardarelli while sitting at a McDonald’s restaurant in Brampton, Ontario.
She says that part of why the PLT lost the brand was because her empanada was designed to imitate the meat as most of the meat alternatives based on hot plants about six years ago.
At that time, a Nielsen study revealed that 43 percent of Canadian consumers expected to increase plant consumption based on plants, and in the previous two years, they had bought four percent less meat.
Buyado for these reports and others that suggest that the “meat” market will be valued at $ 135 billion of the United States. However, the diners did not take them and were finally taken from the menus due to the lack of demand.
The Mcveggie tries to learn from all that.
“This is something that is more anxious and more desirable,” said Cardarelli, who said he eats two per week.
Whether someone has dietary restrictions or is looking for a variety, he believes that the attractiveness of the plate is obvious as soon as one is bitten of the sandwich and sees the thick vegetation mixture that forms the empanada.
“You can really see the plant component in it, which I think add a bit of vitality and uniqueness of what we have tried in the past,” he said. “This is what they are looking for now.”
Mcveggie differs from international options
Proof that the theory will be the culmination of months of product development, studying PLT comments and observing vegetable -based products that McDonald’s tested in other places.
India, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand have also sold sandwiches called Mcveggie sometimes, but they are not the same as the offer of McDonald’s Canada, which was developed specifically for this country.
However, the sandwich is not completely made with Canadian ingredients because Cardarelli said that the country’s climate makes it “quite difficult” to obtain national products throughout the year. The company would not name which countries in addition to Canada will get vegetables.
The pressure to ensure that the MCVEGGIE is a success is high, not only because of the past failures, but because McDonald’s can earn even more customers that they could have eaten in other places due to the lack of plant -based options.
His research shows that about 35 percent of Canadians have some type of food limitation, whether an allergy or a personal preference, and approximately half of the time that one third determines where the group is having eating.
McDonald’s will see if Mcveggie changes this trend and analyzes how often people enter for sandwich, what they order with him and if he fits their routines.
“I hope they feel the emotion and then gravitate towards a product like this,” said Cardarelli.
“Ultimately, it will be your voice that helps us determine whether this is something bigger or not.”
