Dunkin’ Donuts adds plant-based sausage sandwich to menu

Dunkin' (formerly Dunkin' Donuts) is the latest fast food restaurant to join the plant-based trend.

The company on Tuesday announced a collaboration with Beyond Meat for a new Beyond Sausage Breakfast Sandwich made with 100% plant-based ingredients (peas, mung beans, rice, sunflower and coconut oil) and a mix of spices served on an English muffin with egg and American cheese.

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"A key benefit of the Beyond Breakfast Sausage patty is that it is more sustainable for the environment than traditional meats as it requires less water, less land, generates fewer Greenhouse Gas Emissions, and requires less energy than a beef burger to produce," the company wrote in a news release.

For now, the sandwich is only available at select locations across Manhattan, but Dunkin’ plans to roll out the option nationwide in the future.

Tim Horton’s, Carl’s Jr., Burger King and Little Caesars have also recently added or began testing meat alternatives. In May, Georgia-based Chick-fil-A also reported it may be considering a vegetarian or vegan sandwich option.

But chicken substitutes are a tougher sell.

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"Fabricating the look, texture and taste of whole muscle, like a chicken breast, is harder to master than making a ground-up product such as a burger, experts say. And because chicken tends to be significantly less expensive than beef per pound, it isn't as tempting a financial target," AJC's Matt Kempner reported last month. Replacing chicken isn't as beneficial to the environment, either.

“According to the World Resources Institute,” Kempner added, “while the poultry industry can have animal welfare issues, ‘beef production requires about seven times more land and emits seven times more greenhouse gases as chicken per gram of protein.’”

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