McDonald’s Attempts to Grow New Roots with the McPlant
Published on November 16, 2020, at 5:05 p.m.
by Caroline Ladd.
When you hear the product names McNuggets, McRib and McFlurry, you tend to think about the popular fast-food chain McDonald’s. However, have you heard about its new product called the McPlant? McDonald’s announced it will release the meatless burger in 2021 to launch the company’s new meatless menu.
Twitter users seem to be disappointed with McDonald’s for naming the product McPlant. Some people found the name to be unappetizing, while others called out the marketing team for being lazy and uncreative.
McDonald’s is not the first fast-food chain to introduce a meatless burger. Many chains have sold their own versions of a meatless burger for a few years now. One of the most well-known and successful meatless burgers is the Impossible Whopper sold by Burger King. This product has continued to be a major success for Burger King, driving competitors to want to have the same result with their own plant-based lines.
McDonald’s is such a large company that it has to do things at a much bigger scale than its competitors. McDonald’s is the first fast-food chain to create its own plant-based line, and it is now in question if other brands will follow soon after. While McDonald’s is not completely disclosing how it is making its meat-less meat, Beyond Meat has hinted toward being a part of this process because of its partnership with McDonald’s in creating the P.L.T. (plant, lettuce, tomato) in 2019. This did not sit well with its consumers, because its stock dropped around “17 percent”: https://www.fool.com/quote/nasdaq/beyond-meat/bynd/ on Nov. 10, the day following the announcement.
Overall, 2020 has seemed to be the year of McDonald’s going above and beyond to reach different audiences in order to engage new customers. The Travis Scott meal caused some locations to run out of ingredients due to popular demand and now its announcement of a new plant-based line accommodates the different diets of its customers.
McDonald’s is constantly looking for new ways to interact with and connect to new and old consumers, making people want to come back for more.
