McDonald’s Canada testing a vegetable -based hamburger – again

McDonald’s Canada tries a vegetable -based hamburger – again.

The fast food chain announced Tuesday that it would test its new McVeggie in certain restaurants in Langley, Richmond and Surrey, British Columbia, as well as Brampton and Windsor, Ontario, and Dieppe, Moncton, Riverview and Sussex, NB, until April 14.

The sandwich, which will appear in regular and spicy habanero varieties, has a galette bread made of carrots, green beans, zucchini, peas, soy, broccoli and corn. It is delivered on a toasted sesame bun and is garnished with lettuce and grated sauce.

The dish is the last attempt by McDonald’s Canada to court customers who are not interested or unable to consume popular staples such as the Big Mac.

Previous attempts to respond to vegetarians did not succeed, leaving the sandwich part of the menu of the company full of beef and poultry options, but little for those who do not eat meat.

The most recent menu element of the chain before the McVeggie was the plant, lettuce and tomato or PLT.

The sandwich made with a plant beyond the meat cake was tested in September 2019 in 28 restaurants, mainly in London, Ontario. It then extended to 52 locations covering the neighboring kitchen of Kitchener-Waterloo and Guelph in a 12-week trial from January 2020.

“This was not quite what consumers are looking for,” said director of chief marketing Francesca Cardarelli when he was sitting in a McDonald’s restaurant in Brampton, Ontario.

She explains why the PLT has missed the brand because its pancake was designed to imitate meat, because most meat alternatives based on hot plants did it about six years ago.

At the time, a study by Nielsen revealed that 43% of Canadian consumers expected to increase the consumption of plant -based foods and, in the previous two years, had bought 4% less meat.

Raised by these reports and others suggesting that the “meat” market based on plants would be estimated at 135 billion US dollars by 2035, fast food joints such as Tim Hortons and McDonald’s rushed to offer such products. However, the guests did not take them and they were finally removed from the menus due to a lack of demand.

The MCVGGIE tries to learn from all this.

“It’s just something more trendy and more desirable,” said Cardarelli, who said she eats two a week.

Whether someone has food restrictions or is looking for a variety, she thinks that the attraction of the dish is obvious as soon as you take a bite of the sandwich and spots the thick greenery mixture that forms the pancake.

“You can really see the vegetable component, which, I think, adds a little dynamism and uniqueness of what we have tested in the past,” she said. “This is what they are looking for now.”

MCVGGIE differs from international options

Testing this theory will be the culmination of months of product development, studying PLT feedback and looking for products from McDonald’s vegetables tested elsewhere.

India, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand have also sold sandwiches called both the MCVGGIE, but they are not the same as the offer of McDonald’s Canada, which has been developed for this country specifically.

The sandwich, however, is not completely made with Canadian ingredients because Cardarelli said that the country’s climate makes “quite difficult” to get domestic products all year round. The company would not name countries other than Canada from which it will obtain vegetables.

The pressure to ensure that the MCVGGIE is a success is high, not only because of past failures, but because McDonald’s should earn even more customers who could have eaten elsewhere due to a lack of plant -based options.

His research shows that around 35% of Canadians have a kind of food limitation, whether it is an allergy or a personal preference, and about half of the time, a third determines where the group with which they dine.

McDonald’s will see if the MCVGGIE moves this trend and will analyze the frequency to which people come for the sandwich, which they command with him and if he integrates into their routines.

“I hope they will feel excitement, then gravitate to a product like this,” said Cardarelli.

“In the end, it will be their voice that helps us determine whether it stands something bigger or not.”