McDonald's McPlant burger turns into McFaceplant

McDonald’s Ends Testing McPlant Burger, Adding Pressure on Beyond Meat Stock

McDonald’s announced that it has concluded the U.S. trial of its McPlant burger, which is made with the plant-based protein manufactured by Beyond Meat (BYND).

In November 2021, McDonald’s began testing the meat-free burger in eight restaurants across America. In February this year, the company introduced the McPlant burger at around 600 locations. According to third-party reports, the experiment ended as a failure. In a recent note, according to CNBC, JP Morgan analyst Ken Goldman cited employees from McDonald’s revealing that the burger did not sell well enough.

“Consensus contemplates 21 percent growth for BYND’s total top line this year, followed by another 25 percent next year. These rates will not be easy to hit, in our view, without [McDonald’s] in the U.S.,” Goldman wrote.

In a June note, Peter Saleh, an analyst at global financial services firm BTIG, wrote about franchisees telling him about disappointing McPlant burger sales. The sale numbers were at or below the low end of estimates.

Early last year, Beyond Meat announced a three-year partnership with McDonald’s. Another partner, Taco Bell,  was dissatisfied with Beyond Meat’s “carne asada” and has yet to test it in a single restaurant. The loss of potential sales to these big food chains is a significant threat to Beyond Meat, and its share price has plunged for several months.

Given my own nasty experience with Beyond Meat, I'm not sure how the company is still around. I did enjoy the Plant Whopper being sold by a local Burger King a while ago (this was in conjunction with an Australian company, v2food, that made the meatless burger patties), and I'm still mightily curious about the Impossible Burger. Anyway, my gut feeling is that McDonald's should have partnered with Impossible, not with Beyond. Beyond products are shit, and anyone who thinks "they taste just like beef" is fooling himself. My understanding is that Impossible products have actually fooled some carnivores (by no means all carnivores), which leads me to think it must taste better overall. I keep hoping Impossible will find its way to Korea, but it may be a long wait. At the Foreign Food Mart last night, I saw Beyond Sausage in the freezer section, and I made a face. How on earth can Beyond have a longer reach than Impossible? I guess they're just marketing more aggressively.