Hardee’s to Start Selling Beyond Meat’s Sausages and Burgers

(Bloomberg) -- Hardee's, home of the Black Angus Thickburger and Smoked Sausage Biscuit, will test out plant-based burgers and sausages from Beyond Meat Inc. in two of the chain's largest markets this fall.

The chain, owned by CKE Restaurants, will start selling the items on October 28, offering a Beyond Thickburger and Beyond Sausages on a Hardee's biscuit. Both the burgers and sausages are made with recipes specifically for Hardee's and not available elsewhere.

Carl's Jr., also owned by CKE, was one of Beyond Meat's first major restaurant partnerships, and now Hardee's is looking to replicate its success.

As consumers seek out more plant-based meat alternatives, the big restaurant chains are racing to keep up. Earlier Thursday, Burger King announced that the Impossible Whopper, made with a soy-based meatless patty by Impossible Foods, would be available nationally next week. The plant-based burgers are bringing in new customers, chains say.

‘Brand New Guest'

“We've learned that we're reaching a brand new guest, an incremental guest, that we hadn't touched prior to launching it,” said Owen Klein, VP of Global Culinary Innovation at CKE. “Since late 2018 when we launched, we've sold over 4 million Beyond patties at Carl's Jr., and a lot of them were to new faces that didn't frequent Carl's Jr. prior to that launch.”

There are 1,841 Hardee's restaurants and 1,112 Carl's Jr. locations in the U.S.

To contact the reporter on this story: Deena Shanker in New York at dshanker@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anne Riley Moffat at ariley17@bloomberg.net, Jonathan Roeder

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.