Menu Innovations

Customers are demanding more food items that can be eaten outside the traditional dayparts, and that’s good news for brands investing in snack options. “As schedules change and lives get busier, consumers haven’t eaten three square meals a day for years, and all-day snacking is here to stay,” says Lori Abou Habib, chief marketing officer at Sonic Drive-In. Auntie Anne’s vice president of marketing Marcel Nahm shares that sentiment.

KFC announced Wednesday that it is moving forward with meat alternatives via a deal with Beyond Meat to test plant-based nuggets, or Beyond Fried Chicken, in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Nashville, Tennessee, for about three weeks. The nuggets—which will be available in more than 70 restaurants—will appear on menus Monday through February 23, or while supplies last.

Plant proteins are all the rage right now, but, in practice, consumers are much quicker to replace what are perceived as less-healthy proteins like beef and pork with seafood rather than products like the Impossible or Beyond burgers. Fifty-eight percent of consumers surveyed by Datassential in August said they are trying to increase consumption of seafood, versus 37 percent who said they were trying to increase consumption of veggie burgers.