Brief: Beyond Fried Chicken to make US nationwide debut at KFC

• Beyond Fried Chicken, the plant-based southern fried chicken analog developed by Beyond Meat, will be available to KFC customers across the US starting next week “while supplies last.”
• Earlier versions of the product had been piloted for limited periods at select KFC locations in the since 2019 – but this is the first time it’ll be sold as a general menu item across the fast food chain’s 4,000 US stores.
• Quoted in a statement, KFC’s US president Kevin Hochman said: “The mission from day one was simple – make the world-famous Kentucky Fried Chicken from plants. And now, over two years later, we can say: ‘mission accomplished.'”

Why it matters:

Beyond Meat is locked in competition with its archrival Impossible Foods, as well as numerous startups such as Next Gen Foods and Simulate, to create convincing plant-based chicken analogs [disclosure: AFN‘s parent company, AgFunder, is an investor in Simulate.] The nationwide debut at KFC — building on a previously-signed partnership with the chain’s parent Yum Brands — marks an important victory for the the Los Angeles-based company.

While the ingredients list for the fried ‘chicken’ is unconfirmed at this time, Beyond Meat’s other alt-chicken products are made from components including fava bean protein.