Beyond Meat Debuts Plant-Based Chicken Tenders at 400 Indie Restaurants

Beyond Meat, diving further into plant-based poultry after hits and flops in the category, announced this week that it will supply faux chicken tenders to 400 indie restaurants around the country. The new product arrives as mom-and-pop eateries continue to reopen after pandemic-related shutdowns. It also coincides, fortuitously, with a chicken shortage that’s caused prices of conventional poultry to spike. Beyond, best known for its faux burgers and sausage, launched plant-based chicken strips as its first grocery-store product nearly eight years ago. But reception was chilly and reviews were mixed, so the frozen line was dropped in 2019. After more R&D on its recipe, the brand is rolling out its chicken-free chicken slowly, at several hundred specialty diners like Jailbird, Burger Patch and Pub 819. That’s compared to the thousands of restaurants—Denny’s, Carl’s Jr. and Del Taco among them—that first tested and later added its alt burgers and ground meat substitute to their menus. The new product debut is the latest bit of news from Los Angeles-based Beyond, which has landed significant deals with McDonald's and PepsiCo. The brand also expanded its retail distribution and rolled out a revamped flagship burger this year with less fat, fewer calories and more vitamins and minerals. At the same time, the brand had setbacks on the food service side, which already suffered during lockdown: Most of the Dunkin chain dropped the Beyond breakfast sandwich this summer, and Pizza Hut discontinued its pizzas made with Beyond sausage. Faba beans and peas Beyond’s new breaded chicken tenders, made from faba beans and peas, are a different product than the chicken-less wings and nuggets that have been massive consumer successes at KFC locations in select cities. (Beyond now has a global deal with the fast food chain’s parent company, Yum Brands.) The new tenders, with 14 grams of protein and 40% less saturated fat than some competitors, are the result of “our tireless pursuit for excellence and growth,” according to Dariush Ajami, chief innovation officer, touting the product’s “exceptional culinary experience and strong nutritional benefits.” As part of the company’s hype around the new product, Beyond’s CEO Ethan Brown will host his first Reddit AMA on Monday. The brand hasn’t released details about sales to grocery channels, but plans to distribute the tenders at colleges, hotels, stadiums and other venues. Not just nuggs anymore Consumer demand for all-things plant-based--from almond milk to yogurt to hot dogs--has skyrocketed recent years, accelerating during Covid-19’s quarantine, with fake beef, sausage and pork leading the way on faux proteins. Interest in chicken alternatives—and to a lesser extent, seafood—has also surged, with brands moving past the now ubiquitous nuggets to more sophisticated formats like tenders and filets. Beyond competitors such as Livekindly Collective, Kellogg and Gardein have broken into and established themselves in the evolving space. A startup called Daring Foods just landed a $40 million funding round to continue scaling its clean label, lower-calorie plant-based chicken offerings. Greenleaf Foods’ Lightlife recently launched two chicken-free poultry products (tenders and filets) at Sprouts markets, with executives calling them “the most chicken-like products” in the plant-based landscape. “We wanted to come to market with something unique,” Dan Curtin, president of Greenleaf, told Adweek. “It’s all about the color, texture, how the product pulls and tears. We worked hard on the technology and the breading system so it would look, feel and taste as much like chicken as possible.” Meanwhile brands like Meati, Eat Just and Upside Foods are leading the charge on cultured chicken for the U.S. and other markets. Good Food Institute’s Zak Weston had previously predicted that chicken-free chicken would be the next breakout category in the plant-based industry. “When this happens,” he wrote in a blog post, “plant-based meat will reach new consumers and grab an even bigger share of the market.”