The Future Of Fast Food Is Vegan Says Leading UK Restaurateur

The UK has been leading the way with the transition to veganism with so many chefs and restaurants adopting vegan dishes on the menu. Much of the population in the UK are aware of the impending climate disaster and the impact our choices have on the environment.

This has made it easier for companies to offer vegan alternatives to almost everything imaginable.

And fast-food chains are not falling behind.

Burger King's vegan burgers

BURGER KING’S VEGAN OUTLET

Burger King recently transformed an iconic outlet in the heart of London to a fully vegan outlet as part of a month-long trial to test the waters. The menu featured 25 vegan dishes which included vegan versions of their classics like legendary Plant-based Whopper, the Vegan Royale and even vegan onion rings. Their offerings also included vegan ice creams from Ben & Jerry’s.

On the heels of this trial by Burger King and the success, James Lewis has an optimistic prediction.

Lewis comes from a lineage of restauranteurs and runs two vegan restaurants in London with Michelin star chef Alexis Gauthier who himself is a vegan.

“I am a classically trained French chef who held Michelin stars for 12 years and the thought of someone like me being vegan would have been insane five or ten years ago. But now the world is waking up. This is the future”, says Alexis on his website.

According to an article that appeared in the Guardian, Lewis commented that all fast-food chains will soon be serving only vegan food.

He said, “fast food is 100% the best area to switch to vegan. The chains are often sneered at by people but they are setting the trends here.”

“There’s no point starting a vegan chain because once McDonald’s figure out how to make a good vegan burger, they will think: ‘What’s the point in the cost of keeping all these animals when we can make it just as good and grow it in the ground?’

KFC's Vegan Chicken Burger
Image Courtesy KFC

VEGAN FAST-FOOD NATION

Burger King is not the only one to jump onto the plant-based fast-food bandwagon. In the past, McDonald’s has introduced vegan happy meals, KFC launched a vegetarian burger apart from vegan fast food brands like Really Happy Chickens who already have two outlets in London. Many other fast-food chains in the UK are introducing vegan options on their menu too.

Burger King seems to be ahead of the curve with their meat-free branch trials in Cologne, Spain and now London.

In India, GoodDot has been innovating in the vegan mock meat space with their vegan fried chicken and by even launching vegan food trucks that have a menu replete with vegan mock meat.

If the trends are to be believed, Lewis’ prediction doesn’t seem too far-fetched especially with the way food-technology is evolving to make plant-based meats acceptable to everyone’s palates.

“Not too long from now, people will be getting their burger and it’ll be a vegan one and that’ll be the norm and they won’t think any different,” says Lewis.

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