Saving the Planet through Fast Food: Not Impossible
By Brittany Daley | April 3, 2021
A year ago, anybody plant-based would have told you that eating a “meal” at a fast food establishment would have been simply consuming fries and a shake. However, over the past year fast food companies have been rushing to release plant-based meat substitutes in order to stay in touch with the population and most importantly to stay trendy with the crowds. Today it is uncommon for a fast food giant to not have Impossible or Beyond meat. Vegans everywhere are rising!
In April 2019, Del Taco launched their “Beyond Taco” at all of their locations nationwide, making them the first national Mexican fast-food chain to do anything like this. Let me tell you.. This was a big deal in the vegan community. Civilians who would not normally even consume fast food flocked to try whatever these protein-packed meatless crumbles are made out of (side note: do we even know? Do we even care?). This was undoubtedly a big PR deal and the other fast food chains saw this as an opportunity to jump onto the trendy train. Soon after, seemingly every fast food chain started to do the same.
Now, you can walk into Carl’s Jr, Pizza Hut, KFC, Dunkin’, Burger King, White Castle, etc. and can order to your vegan heart’s content. Recently, McDonald’s announced that they will be releasing their version of this vegan burger trend too; something many of us never saw happening (and hopefully unlike the McRib, we don’t find traces of yoga mats in it. Are yoga mats vegan?). According to Rachel Konrad of Impossible Foods, "The launch at Burger King was our biggest moment in terms of media coverage, and that raised demand and sales everywhere else."
When it comes down to it, what does this mean for the public relations world? This phenomenon is interesting because while the products released are plant-based, Impossible Foods explained that the target audience of their products are actually not vegans, as vegans only make up 3% of the population anyway. The angle here is to project the goal of reducing carbon footprints to the general public in order to raise awareness and save the planet. Sales of these products are only going up which proves that there is a lot of power in publicity, but also gives a lot of room for these companies to want to partner with organizations looking at the larger goal past the sales. If these establishments really want to be hip and stay up with the plant-based trend, we’ll see them trying to partner with other eco-friendly organizations.
While this could end up being a dying trend, it probably won’t be. As we all become more socially aware, we care more. If buying a McPlant rather than a Big Mac will help heal our planet, a lot of people may start thinking twice. These companies will make a lasting impact through public relations and any fast food company should really think about capitalizing on that if they’re smart.
Biography: Brittany Daley is a junior-standing student at CSUN majoring in Public Relations with a minor in Popular Culture Studies. Born and raised in Northridge, Brittany has always been drawn to the bustling entertainment scene just down the road in Los Angeles. Upon graduation in December 2021, she hopes to be working for a television studio within a creative department.
Picture via: deltaco.com