A former McDonald’s chef has revealed if the iconic fast-food chain will ever launch its plant-based nuggets Stateside – and his answer is quite surprising.
The information was shared in a new TikTok video made by Mike Haracz, who spent four years as the US manager of Culinary Innovation for McDonald’s.
It came in light of the recent news that France had added plant-based ‘chicken’ nuggets to their menu at all of their restaurants across the country.
The nuggets are made with Beyond Meat, which is a company that makes vegan ‘meat’ out of plant proteins like pea and mung bean.
However, unfortunately for vegans everywhere, Haracz revealed that it doesn’t seem like these will be coming to the United States anytime soon, if at all.
‘I’m gonna say probably not, for a couple of reasons,’ Haracz began the video.
‘Reason number one, plant-based foods at McDonald’s don’t actually sell very well,’ he revealed.
‘They’ve tried the McPlant, they’re tried salads, they’ve tried other things, and the US consumers do not wanna buy vegetables, or vegetable-based things from McDonald’s in The United States.’
He said this what the numbers showed.
The second reason he offered was that it can be quite expensive to get plant-based meat.
‘McDonald’s is vertically integrated in chicken, they get a good deal because they own the bird, the feathers, the beak, the feet, the shells, all that stuff, so whatever they don’t use, they can sell off and make money on that,’ he explained.
‘With plant-based chicken nuggets, not sure how it would be priced, so there’s that issue,’ the former chef continued.
The final and ‘biggest’ issue he posed about the plant-based nuggets was that even though the item would be plant-based, it might be fried in the same fryer where they fry the regular chicken nuggets that contain meat.
‘Cross-contact would mean they are no longer vegan or vegetarian, they are touching actual meat items anyway,’ he explained.
‘A way they may be able to get kind of a loophole is if they are baked, if it’s a baked version, but I’m assuming those will not be delicious as the fried version, so they either would need to get a dedicated fryer to fry those in,’ he suggested.
Haracz also said they could launch the product with a disclaimer on the box that says it has been in contact with meat products – but that would of course pose a problem for vegans and vegetarians.
‘If no vegans come by and eat it and support it, that is a lot less sales that they’re going to have,’ he concluded.
However, France isn’t the only country that gets the privilege of a plant-based item at McDonald’s, according to The Los Angeles Times.
Their plant-based ‘hamburger,’ the McPlant, is available on the menu in Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, Austria, the Baltics, Malta and Slovenia, the outlet reported.
DailyMail.com reached out to McDonald’s for comment.
