麦克普兰特汉堡能说服整个世界少吃肉吗？

I’m holding a sesame seed bun stuffed with tomato, lettuce, pickles, onion, ketchup, mustard, mayo, American cheese, and a classic-looking burger patty: This is the McDonald’s McPlant burger, and it looks a lot like the Quarter Pounder with Cheese Deluxe—although the patty is made from ingredients, such as peas, rice, and potatoes. With the caveat that I’ve been a vegetarian for a long time, I think that it also口味就像用肉制成的版本一样。

McDonald’s isn’t the first major fast food chain to offer a plant-based burger—Burger King started rolling out the Impossible Whopper nationally in 2019. But the McPlant, made with Beyond Meat, and now available across the U.K. and testing in the U.S. and a handful of other markets, has the potential to make a meaningful difference in meat consumption.

“Because of its reach and its revenue—McDonald’s has more locations and sales than any other restaurant chain in the world—McDonald’s could be a huge part of democratizing plant-based meat,” says Emma Ignaszewski, corporate engagement project manager at Good Food Institute, a nonprofit that studies the alternative-meat industry.

她说：“麦当劳正在将其品牌权益投资于McPlant平台，这与1980年代投资于McNugget的品牌权益相同，导致了鸡肉块的普及。”“麦当劳已经扩展了汉堡包，鸡块，早餐三明治和炸薯条。当他们推出新产品时，他们并不是在寻找短期收益，他们正在寻求定义一个新类别，这是他们彻底改变世界获得植物性肉类的机会。”

该公司在背景下表示，它正在“明智地”接近基于植物的市场。2019年在加拿大的少数餐馆中，与Beyter Meat（称为P.L.T.）的另一场合作进行了测试，但没有扩大规模。The McPlant, which McDonald’s says took several years of R&D and internal testing—the company wouldn’t share details about the product development, nor how it’s different from Beyond Meat’s other products—was introduced in late 2020 as a “core menu option” that individual markets could choose to offer when ready. Restaurants in Denmark and Sweden started testing it in early 2021. In the U.K. and Ireland, after tests that started last fall, the burger was permanently added to menus this January.

在美国，一项小规模的测试在2021年开始在八家餐厅开始，以了解如何在厨房中添加汉堡的影响。虽然有多少美国人将选择植物性汉堡而不是肉类，但早期销售是有希望的。Ignaszewski说：“在12月，参与地点的McPlant汉堡的销售额每天达到70个，这是一些分析师的预测。”麦当劳平均每天出售110个巨无霸。现在，在海湾地区和达拉斯 - 沃思周围的600家餐厅中进行的扩大测试正在收集有关客户需求的更多数据。

麦当劳的目标是到2050年达到净零排放；虽然正在采取策略再生农业，很难想象，除非有更多客户减少牛肉的消费，否则该目标是可以实现的，这是任何食物中碳足迹最高的。该公司并没有将McPlant构架为说服顾客减少肉的一种方式，而是提供更多选择的一种方式。尽管如此，如果新汉堡广泛可用，并且如果麦当劳还可以扩大植物性鸡肉，植物性猪肉和其他替代品，那么即使是顾客进行切换，其碳足迹也将开始下降。麦当劳没有共享有关其汉堡销售的数据，但美国人几乎命令90亿汉堡总体一年，许多来自快餐链。

Ignaszewski说：“推出McPlant是替代蛋白质的主要拐点，不仅是食品服务，而且还用于零售，因为McPlant为消费者提供了一个新的机会，可以在熟悉，方便的环境中尝试以植物为基础的产品。”