For weeks, a debate over where to get the best chicken sandwich has waged war between Popeyes, Chick-fil-A and the chicken-eating public at large. But KFC, a chicken giant with a global reach, is working on its own agenda: a planted-based “chicken” that proved so popular in a sales test that it sold out in a single day.
“It’s confusing, but it is also delicious,” read a tweet from KFC on Monday announcing the sale of Beyond Fried Chicken, created with the help of the company Beyond Meat, at a single location in Atlanta. In about five hours on Tuesday, a spokesperson said, the restaurant sold as many plant-based boneless wings and nuggets as it would sell of its popular popcorn chicken in an entire week.
The spokesperson said the company started “talking with various plant-based suppliers this spring” and “decided to launch this very initial, limited test in Atlanta to gauge interest in plant-based options from KFC customers.”
KFC now plans to evaluate the results of Tuesday’s test and customer feedback, to determine what comes next, the spokesperson said.
“Our target customers for this product were flexitarians looking to incorporate plant-based choices into their diets,” the KFC spokesperson said.
