Wendy's restaurant - new veg burger

[David3]

Very recent news - Wendy's hamburger restaurants just launched a plant-based "Plantiful" burger in Canada.

Wendy's will begin serving the burgers next week, on March 2nd, 2020.

Link: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/wendys-launches-plant-based-plantiful-burger-in-canada-2020-02-27

 

[Sax]

Cool - making their own burger seems like a bigger investment than just signing on with Beyond/Impossible.

The marketwatch link didn't specifically say it was vegan so I looked up some other articles and yeah the patty itself is vegan, although it is served with cheese and mayo by default and the bun may not be vegan ("it contains stearoyl-2-lactylate, which could be animal-derived").

 

[Emma JC]

It seems it is a black bean burger, which is great and as there is a Wendy's just up the street I will try it and will let you know what I think.

Emma JC

 

[Lou]

Why is it always Canada and Europe? or the SE USA or the midwest?

Does nobody love us in California?

 

[Sax]

Why is it always Canada and Europe? or the SE USA or the midwest?

Does nobody love us in California?

Well as far as the US I'm guessing doing a market test in California doesn't tell them much about going nationwide. If it's successful in the less progressive regions then they can be sure it'll do well in CA, but the reverse isn't necessarily true.

 

[beancounter]

Why is it always Canada and Europe? or the SE USA or the midwest?

Does nobody love us in California?

California was the first state Chipotle market tested their brown rice and sofritas.

 

[KLS52]

Why is it always Canada and Europe? or the SE USA or the midwest?

Does nobody love us in California?

Or New York

 

[KLS52]

I think the US in general sucks with getting the good/new stuff.

 

[Chryssie]

Florida doesn't get anything very fast.

 

[Deleted member 8081]

If a restaurant serves meat, their marketing executives don't have a clue what "vegan" implies. If a restaurant serves meat, just don't go. i've done everything from dishpit to general manager and every restaurant has food cross contamination. It's unavoidable. My question is why would a person claiming to be vegan be spending money at a restaurant that has as it's most popular items and the foundation of their service, meat? McDonalds makes their french fries exclusively in their own fryers as not to be mixed with other oil. i ask what vegan would actually care? Any vegan that is truly making a 100% effort wouldn't be caught dead spending money in a restaurant founded on a double decker meat sandwich. i don't wanna sound rude but, duh?

 

[Nekodaiden]

This probably belongs in the "humiliated at KFC" thread, but since I'm here...

@jay rebel - I'm a vegan, and very rarely eat out. When I do, it's usually Subway, where I can get (here in Australia) a true veggie/no meat/no dairy/no egg/no animal anything patty, and the salads and dressing (a few vegan options exist) there.

That being said, a week or so ago I went to KFC, and got their fries and some water. I haven't been to KFC in years. Obviously, KFC and Wendy's are more animal product centered but really compared to Subway it's just more with less options. Subway sells a lot of meat subs, cheese etc.

Now I'm just curious, since you seem to judge a person's vegan-ness at least partly on their choice of patronage, rather than on what they actually eat, does my choice of Subway over say, McDonalds, KFC, Burger King etc etch me up just a little higher on your measuring stick? There are 0 vegan eating establishments in my immediate area or even in the areas I typically drive through/visit.

 

[PTree15]

If a restaurant serves meat, their marketing executives don't have a clue what "vegan" implies. If a restaurant serves meat, just don't go. i've done everything from dishpit to general manager and every restaurant has food cross contamination. It's unavoidable. My question is why would a person claiming to be vegan be spending money at a restaurant that has as it's most popular items and the foundation of their service, meat? McDonalds makes their french fries exclusively in their own fryers as not to be mixed with other oil. i ask what vegan would actually care? Any vegan that is truly making a 100% effort wouldn't be caught dead spending money in a restaurant founded on a double decker meat sandwich. i don't wanna sound rude but, duh?

While I realize that dining out is optional, it's still an enjoyable activity for a lot of people. It's isolating enough sometimes as a vegan, and if I started avoiding every restaurant that isn't exclusively vegan, for example, I would be avoiding my family and a lot of friends. This is the type of thing that turns people off from being vegan. We can't make inroads if we don't send a message to these places that vegans are out there, and they want options, too. We kind of have to work within the construct to really change things. I think back 30 years or so, and you'd barely find soy milk on the shelves of mainstream grocery stores. Now there are whole sections catering to animal-free products. That sort of change doesn't happen in a vacuum.

 

[Forest Nymph]

Well as far as the US I'm guessing doing a market test in California doesn't tell them much about going nationwide. If it's successful in the less progressive regions then they can be sure it'll do well in CA, but the reverse isn't necessarily true.

I think they presume the entire ginormous state has all the vegan conveniences of LA, which it does not. There is literally only one completely vegetarian restaurant in my town, and it is a good one that is actually like 95 percent vegan. We have a lot of vegetarian and vegan Mexican choices at two different local restaurants, Beyond Burgers in a couple locations, and a glut of locally made veggie burgers. Sometimes a veggie burger is the only vegan thing on the menu, so I don't get terribly excited about new veggie burgers.

I want something like Native Foods or Veggie Grill here. I hate to sound like a spoiled hipster urbanite, but it would be rad to be able to get vegan buffalo chkn wraps with ranch on a whim again. I also believe there's a market for perhaps a Chik Fil-A style vegan chkn burger with vegan mayo and pickles. I can really tell that I need to go grocery shopping.

Only since they've started marketing vegan foods in other countries first have I felt what it might be like to not be an American. Other countries have been looking at the US all their life like "gee it must be nice to live in America." Meanwhile, I'm like "gee it would be nice to live Switzerland."

 

[Forest Nymph]

California was the first state Chipotle market tested their brown rice and sofritas.

I live in California. We don't have a Chipotle in the entire tri-county region. However, I do think we might get one at the county seat soon.