Del Taco Is Now The First Major Fast Food Chain To Serve Beyond Meat In The USA
Fast food is really starting to get into the meat alternatives game. You have the Impossible Sliders available nationwide at White Castle, McVegans in Europe from McDonald’s, and Impossible Burgers at Fatburger. Now, Del Taco is adding their name to the vegan “beef” game, teaming up with Beyond Meat to bring a plant-based option to their menu.
Photo courtesy of Beyond Meat
While other chains, like Veggie Grill, have Beyond Meat in their stores already, Del Taco is the first major drive-thru restaurant to carry the product in-house. They’re also the first Southwest/Mexican fast food restaurant to carry a plant-based meat on their menu.
The two brands worked together to create a unique vegan “beef” crumble that has all of the same seasonings as Del Taco’s standard ground beef. Customers can use it as a protein replacement in the chain’s lineup of loaded fries, nachos, burritos, and other items.
Del Taco also created two new tacos exclusive to the new Beyond Meat crumble. They both consist of the plant-based meat, lettuce, tomatoes, and your choice of soft flour or crunchy corn taco shell. The differences between the two are that the Beyond Meat Taco contains cheddar cheese, while the 100% vegan Beyond Avocado Taco replaces that with avocado.
For now, the Beyond Meat/Del Taco partnership remains a test that is limited to two locations in Santa Monica and Culver City, CA. Del Taco CMO Barry Westrum said in a statement that the test has “no scheduled end date as of now, as we want to gauge acceptance prior to making further decisions on product availability.”
It is possible, therefore, that the Beyond Meat tacos will eventually spread to all of its locations. Though it is all a matter of whether they are successful in this trial run or not.
