Breaking! KFC & Beyond Meat To Test New Plant-Based Beyond Fried Chicken In The Southern U.S. Beginning February 3rd

Kentucky Fried Chicken and Beyond Meat are announcing an expanded test of Beyond Fried Chicken, plant-based chicken.

Beginning February 3rd, select KFC restaurants in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Nashville, Tennessee, as well as areas surrounding the two cities, will offer new Beyond Fried Chicken menu items, which will be available through February 23rd, or while supplies last.

The expanded test comes on the heels of the overwhelmingly successful test launch in Atlanta last summer, making KFC the first national Quick Service Restaurant in the United States to introduce plant-based chicken in partnership with Beyond Meat.

As previously reported by WAN, during its KFC launch, Beyond Fried Chicken sold out in less than five hours.

The success of the initial test motivated both brands to make additional improvements to Beyond Fried Chicken, creating a plant-based protein that looks and tastes like KFC’s world-famous fried chicken, but with the attributes of plant-based meat.

“The response in Atlanta continues to underscore the growing consumer demand for high-quality, delicious plant-based meats,” said Ethan Brown, Beyond Meat’s Founder and CEO in a statement. “Together with KFC’s team, we have created a plant-based chicken that looks, tastes, and pulls apart like a chicken breast.”

As per an article on Yahoo Finance, Brown shared that “Beyond Meat is setup from a production standpoint to handle a rollout of Beyond Fried Chicken to all 4,000-plus U.S. KFC locations;” with Brown hinting that may be the next logical step.

The news follows the announcement earlier this week that after the overwhelmingly successful Beyond Burger launch exclusively in Los Angeles restaurants, Denny’s will now offer the popular plant-based burger from Beyond Meat in more than 1,700 locations across the United States and Canada.