McDonald's Joins the "Meatless" Race with the McPlant

The main story

After holding out from officially entering the “meatless” race, McDonald’s is gearing up to debut its aptly named McPlant starting in 2021.

During its announcement this month, McDonald’s International President Ian Borden made it very clear that the burger was created “by McDonald’s and for McDonald’s”, although this stirred some confusion about who they’d be getting the product from.

It turns out, the propriety McPlant that the company was eager to tout was made in collaboration with Beyond Meat. The company had dipped its toes with a Beyond Meat partnership to offer P.LT’s (plant, lettuce, and tomato) in select Ontario stores last year with a trial run that ended earlier this June.

While the trial run of their P.L.T ended without any news of its success, McDonald’s decision to place both feet into the “meatless” category by updating their signature “Mc” line (McNuggets, McFlurry) they’re committing to what the future McDonald’s customer will look like.

Teachable Moment

Some market opportunities are difficult to ignore, but when McDonald’s finally enters the race, you know that a trend is becoming part of the norm.

In this case, McDonald’s is placing its bets on the strength of its brand rather than the actual product itself.

The company’s slow build-up to produce “meatless” products under its own moniker shows us that they’re due diligence has paid off and that they’re serious about moving forward.