{"id":23011,"date":"2019-09-26T08:00:57","date_gmt":"2019-09-26T08:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ceo-na.com\/?p=23011"},"modified":"2019-09-26T15:01:43","modified_gmt":"2019-09-26T15:01:43","slug":"ontario-to-roadtest-mcdonalds-beyond-meat-burger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/opinion\/ontario-to-roadtest-mcdonalds-beyond-meat-burger\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontario to roadtest McDonald\u2019s Beyond Meat burger"},"content":{"rendered":"

The landmark plant-based burger will make its debut in select Southwest Ontario locations.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

McDonald\u2019s PLT–a plant, lettuce, and tomato burger–will make its global debut in a handful of cities and towns in Southwestern Ontario.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Beyond Meat plant-based sandwich, which also contains pickles, slivered onions, cheese, mustard, ketchup, \u201cmayo-style sauce,\u201d and a Quarter Pounder-sized bun will cost $6.49 plus tax and be available for 12 weeks in 28 stores around London, Ontario, beginning Sept. 30.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Plans for the launch have been shrouded in secrecy.<\/span><\/p>\n

During an exclusive preview for The Financial Post at McDonald\u2019s Canadian office in Toronto, the test kitchen\u2014which operates as a functioning McDonald\u2019s restaurant for the 363 staff at the Canadian office\u2014was closed while Jeff Anderson, a senior manager in culinary innovation nicknamed Chef Jeff, cooked up samples of the new burger.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A diagram of the PLT, pinned to the test kitchen wall, was labeled \u201cProject Dune Ops Test,\u201d but was later removed by a staff member.<\/span><\/p>\n

The PLT sandwich was developed at McDonald\u2019s global headquarters in Chicago, with the Canadian operation only responsible for carrying out the test in the London, Ont., region.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to The Financial Post, McDonald\u2019s head office picked Southwestern Ontario because of its semblance to the average North American town\u2014or in the words of one company spokesman, because it has \u201cgeographic and representative spreads that we can take and measure against other demographics.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Beyond Meat<\/b><\/h1>\n

A&W Canada stirred up interest in plant-based products over a year ago after the launch of its own Beyond Meat sandwich\u2014a major milestone for the Beyond Meat product, which had yet to launch with a major fast-food chain. Since then, the meat substitute industry has been thrown into the global spotlight, with the Los Angeles-based Beyond Meat\u2019s impressive stock market debut and a series of product launches with large chains.<\/span><\/p>\n

In recent months, the absence of a plant-based option on the McDonald\u2019s menu was starting to draw criticism, especially as a slew of rivals\u2014A&W, Burger King, even Tim Hortons\u2014had experimented with versions of their own.<\/span><\/p>\n

Michael Gonda, McDonald\u2019s vice president of global communications, told the Financial Post that the menu team worked with the Beyond Meat team to develop the patty recipe, with seasoning that delivered a \u201cvery iconic taste.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat takes a tremendous amount of effort, to create something with specialness,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve created something that\u2019s exclusively by us and for us. And that takes a lot of time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The burger will be sold in London, Aylmer, Exeter, Ingersoll, Sarnia, St. Thomas, Strathroy, Tillsonburg and Woodstock. McDonald\u2019s has said it doesn\u2019t yet have plans for a wider rollout, as that will be dependent on the results of the test.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The landmark plant-based burger will make its debut in select […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":23010,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[2675,99,98,1385,2673,2674,2676],"class_list":["post-23011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-beyond-meat","tag-ceo","tag-ceo-north-america","tag-ceo-northam","tag-mcdonalds","tag-mcdonalds-plt","tag-ontario-to-roadtest-mcdonalds-beyond-meat-burger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23011"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23012,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23011\/revisions\/23012"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}