Tampere, Finland, will be ground zero for McDonald’s testing-stage product, the McVegan. The meatless burger will have a soy patty and can be served with vegan fries, according to McDonald’s Finland Marketing Director Christoffer Rönnblad. The McVegan’s Tampere test-run through November will determine whether or not the McVegan will be launched throughout all of Finland—and perhaps, eventually, the United States.
“We will consider launching the McVegan in all McDonald’s restaurants in Finland in 2018,” Rönnblad said. “The decision will depend on our customers’ opinion on McVegan. The very first test sales results, customer feedback, and the attention the product is getting in different vegan communities are very promising.”
Finland, whose population has called for more and more vegetarian food items from McDonalds in recent years, is not the only country to experiment with healthier alternatives to the multitude of low-quality burgers McDonald’s customarily serves. France saw the introduction of the Le Grand Veggie burger—a burger with a patty of carrots and root vegetables—and in May, McDonald’s added the McVeggie to its menus in Norway.
A single McVegan sandwich is priced at €3, with the extra value meal priced at €6.95 throughout the Finnish test. The burger is made up of the aforementioned soy patty on a Quarter Pounder bun, topped with a vegan McFeast sauce, ketchup, mustard, fresh tomato, lettuce, onion and pickle slices.
Whether or not the product becomes a staple for the company internationally, or even if the test fails to lead to a year of Finnish McVegans, the initiatives to introduce plant-based products in countries like France, Norway and Finland, indicate an increasing demand for vegan and vegetarian options.
Information gathered from veggieathletic.com and forbes.com