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>somewhat unsurprisingly, will be called "McPlant." Is it just me that didn't find the name obvious, and perhaps not a good one? Many people have an aversion

• toomuchtodo 6y ago
  People who shop the dollar menu are a different customer than someone who will pay a premium for a meat substitute.
  • reaperducer 6y ago
    "Premium" is the key word here. There was an article in one of the business magazines about a year ago about why so many fast food companies are adding meatless options. It's not about health. It's not about choice. It's not about the planet. It's about money. The menus need high-priced items and low-priced items to appeal to different types of customers. Most fast-food joints need a basic product they're known for, and a premium product that costs the consumer more and has a larger profit margin, that the average consumer might occasionally try. The fast food companies can charge more for a meatless product, and reap bigger profits. A little greenwashing doesn't hurt, either.
    • mprovost 6y ago
      Once the meatless companies scale up their supply chains and production lines, they predict that they'll be cheaper than meat. So in the future the meatless option will be the "dollar menu" and you'll have to pay a premium for the real deal. Of course that also depends how the subsidies to the meat industry keep up as demand drops.
• reaperducer 6y ago
  McDonald's already has the omnivore market. It's trying to bring in the herbivores, so McPlant makes it obvious.
  • elicash 6y ago
    There are omnivores like me that are excited about plant-based burgers yet feel silly ordering a "McPlant." I'm so self-conscious that if I'm at a Denny's I won't order a "Moon Over My Hammy." I'm aware the person taking the order doesn't care and hears these menu names a thousand times a day and still have that aversion. Are there more than a tiny number of us? I don't know. That said, this is another benefit of the kiosks.
    • banana_giraffe 6y ago
      Last time I was at a McDonald's, it was easy, even preferred, to order from a giant touch screen, so perhaps there's less friction on silly names than there used to be. (Reminds me of a report I read ages ago about the "Ziosk" on-table ordering devices causing customers to be more likely to order desserts and other "guilty pleasure" foods.)
      • walshemj 6y ago
        When my Local Mc Donalds screens broke down it was a disaster as most of the crew did no know how to work with out it. I am actually surprised how bad many Mac Donald's are at Time and Motion - or maybe its the UK Franchises
    • caymanjim 6y ago
      I'm the same way. If a menu has "Eggs Benny" on it, I'll order "Eggs Benedict" because I can't bring myself to say cutesy things. I know it's my hangup. I'll change orders before I say something like that, most of the time.
      • abawany 6y ago
        I similarly refuse to use Starbucks' cute-isms for cup sizes (Venti, etc.) but I won't have any trouble ordering a McPlant - it might even provide me another reason to visit a McD beyond the wireless-for-the-price-of-a-coffee reason.
• Alex3917 6y ago
  > Is it just me that didn't find the name obvious, and perhaps not a good one? It's easy to imagine some sort of stylized green leaf on the wrapper, would would fit well with their other iconography. To understand why it's a good name, you need to imagine it in the visual context of their design language.
  • deleted 6y ago
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• untog 6y ago
  > Many people have an aversion to something if it's called plant, healthy or natural. I don't think that's true, particularly "natural". People have been labeling everything they can "natural" for years in order to boost sales. But it's interesting that McDonalds is being so explicit. Perhaps Impossible and Beyond Meat have already done the hard work of exposing people to these products and now McDonalds hopes to swoop in without dealing with any of the product confusion? Either way I'm interested to try them. I've had a few of the Dunkin Donuts Beyond Meat breakfast sandwiches and they're fantastic.
  • JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    Yes! Beyond Meat is definitely a 'cut above' the other one. And McD's started by collaborating with Beyond Meat. If that means anything, I look forward to a great McPlant!
• dheera 6y ago
  I fully agree with this. The goal really should be to cut down on the carbon impact in the long term with a product that is hopefully also tastier and healthier, that will entice a large fraction of the country to increase the plant-based fraction of their diet. Not just offer a veggie burger for "poor liberals and vegetarians" who have nothing else to eat at McDonalds. I really hope they don't screw this up by producing a crappy Costco-quality veggie burger. Impossible and Beyond are doing great on the taste front, Burger King already engaged Impossible, and I'm not sure how much research it will take McDonald's to catch up.
• danpalmer 6y ago
  > Many people have an aversion to something if it's called plant, healthy or natural. Moreover, to many "McPlant" will sound like a healthy alternative, when in reality many plant-based meat replacements are a similar number of calories or higher than meat, and are unlikely to be healthier in general.
  • shafyy 6y ago
    Many plant-based meats are healthier than animal-based meats, just because they don't contain cholesterol and usually few saturated fats. Somewhat related, they also hae a lower chance of giving you foodborne dieases. Sure, they're still burgers and not kale salads.
  • iknowstuff 6y ago
    Can we decouple the idea of "healthy" from calories? Calorie density doesn't make a meal unhealthy.
    • thehappypm 6y ago
      In a very real sense, calories are the only thing that make a meal unhealthy, too, though.
    • suprfnk 6y ago
      > Calorie density doesn't make a meal unhealthy. That's right. > Can we decouple the idea of "healthy" from calories? Not completely. While calories themselves don't make a food healthy or unhealthy, healthy foods definitely skew towards low caloric density, and unhealthy foods definitely skew towards high caloric density. No causation, very strong correlation.
    • grecy 6y ago
      > Calorie density doesn't make a meal unhealthy Can you list a five things that are calorie dense that are healthy, and five things that are not calorie dense that are unhealthy?
      • 6y ago
• fullshark 6y ago
  Mcsomething it had to be. The question is what is the something. McVeggie doesn't work, because veggie burgers became synonymous with the last generation of plant based burgers. McPlant does sound awkward right now but with the full backing of mcdonalds marketing / their resturant footprint it will roll of the tongue within a few months of launch.
  • lisper 6y ago
    > Mcsomething it had to be. I would have gone with "McMiracle Burger" (as a riff on "Impossible Burger").
    • colesdefectum 6y ago
      McPossible Burger would have worked.
      • JonathonW 6y ago
        If they wanted to get sued for trademark infringement. (McDonalds is working with Beyond Meat, one of Impossible Foods' largest competitors, for their plant-based meat substitutes; deriving their product name from a competitor's product is almost certainly a bad idea.)
  • elicash 6y ago
    Did it actually need to be a different menu item? I'm just throwing this out there, but maybe there was an equivalent to what "Supersize" meant for going larger in size instead that's geared towards plant-based versions of each burger. So maybe I still want a Big Mac, but I want it with these plant-based burgers but still with the extra slice of bread and the special sauce. I don't have a name for this as clever as Supersize, but it seems feasible.
    • shafyy 6y ago
      This is actually a good point. Kind of like how BK does it with the Impossible Whopper. It's still a Whopper, but with plant-based meat.
• ogre_codes 6y ago
  > Many people have an aversion to something if it's called plant, healthy or natural. I don't think this is the issue. Nobody would eat something called "McMeat", it begs the question "What kind of meat?" and usually the assumption is the worst. When I hear "McPlant", what comes up in my head is eating a tree or grass. If you leave it to people's imagination, often what comes to mind is the worst not the best. This is the genius of "Impossible Burger". They manage to suggest it's great and sidestep the inevitable question of what is in it. They are literally suggesting the opposite, that they found the holy grail of food, great tasting and healthy. Though I have the same feelings when I read "McRib" as well and it's making another comeback so maybe I'm off base here.
  • ChrisArchitect 6y ago
    The McRib is coming back again? (insert guy looking at girl meme, with McPlant being overlooked for McRib is Back)
    • I-M-S 6y ago
      It is in the US in December
    • deelowe 6y ago
      It always comes back.
    • jraby3 6y ago
      Yes. I read on Reddit that pork prices are at a low and McDonald’s takes advantage by bringing out the McRib.
  • coryfklein 6y ago
    > I have the same feelings when I read "McRib" Me too! That name invariably forces a cringe as I imagine biting down on a rib bone secreted away between two buns.
    • RandallBrown 6y ago
• klenwell 6y ago
  What's interesting is that McDonald's has tried something like this this before and, it has been argued, effed it up due to naming. For an interesting account of their first failed attempt, 30 years ago, I highly recommend this New Yorker article, The Trouble with Fries (2001): https://web.archive.org/web/20081218211703/http://www.gladwell.com/2001/2001_03_05_a_fries.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20081218211703/http://www.gladwe... It's Malcolm Gladwell so take it with a packet of salt I suppose. I think it's Gladwell at his best and I often find myself referring back to it whenever the topics of fast food or marketing come up. On the naming: The McLean was a flop, and four years later it was off the market. What happened? Part of the problem appears to have been that McDonald's rushed the burger to market before many of the production kinks had been worked out. More important, though, was the psychological handicap the burger faced. People liked AU Lean in blind taste tests because they didn't know it was AU Lean; they were fooled into thinking it was regular ground beef. But nobody was fooled when it came to the McLean Deluxe. It was sold as the healthy choice--and who goes to McDonald's for health food? Times have changed, but I think there's still a lot to be said for this suggestion at end of article: But transparency can backfire, because sometimes nothing is more deadly for our taste buds than the knowledge that what we are eating is good for us. McDonald's should never have called its new offering the McLean Deluxe, in other words. They should have called it the Burger Supreme or the Monster Burger, and then buried the news about reduced calories and fat in the tiniest type on the remotest corner of their Web site.
  • maxsilver 6y ago
    I think the times have really changed since 30 years ago. McDonalds sells Fruit and Lattes and Salads and Wraps now (or did until the pandemic started) and while none of those were a top seller, they all moved units. Healthy (or at least, the illusion of healthy) is in, even at McDonalds. As long as the burger tastes good, and isn't gross or labour-neglected or similar (like their salads and wraps occasionally were), then I suspect the Plant-based Burger to do reasonably well. Anecdotally, I'm at McDonalds about once a week, and I'd try it at least once.
  • Out_of_Characte 6y ago
    "buried the news about reduced calories and fat in the tiniest type on the remotest corner of their Web site." Exept how do you reach your target audience now? Vegans wont be checking the remotest corner of the mcdonalds website every sunday. Worst of all, you'll probaly piss off meat eaters who might feel deceived, your main customer.
• xnx 6y ago
  Remember all the mockery around the name "iPad"? First impressions are often wrong.
  • Someone1234 6y ago
    The mockery was mostly about how obvious/lazy/predictable people felt the name was. I don't understand why you think that disproves anything? The iPad was a success, but the name can still be obvious without the product being bad.
• amanzi 6y ago
  "McPlant" is a fairly horrible sounding burger! Burger King here in NZ have plant-based burgers called the Rebel Whopper which is quite a catchy name. Technically, it can't be classified as vegetarian though, because it's cooked on the same grill as the beef burgers. Not sure if the McPlant will be cooked on different grills or not?
  • JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    What on earth? Why would that matter? Does somebody lose their vegan powers if a particle of fat gets into their burger?
    • senkora 6y ago
      People can be irrational when it comes to their diets, but that doesn’t make them wrong. Some people care and some don’t. Restaurants tend to take the strictest interpretation of a diet because that minimizes angry customers.
      • JoeAltmaier 6y ago
        Yeah and I don't like kale in my food. Clearly I'm not wrong, because apparently nobody is. But a busy restaurant is not the place to make a fuss over where a particular dish was cooked. I don't get to insist on a separate pot to make my meal, because it might get polluted by kale. It is wrong, it a real sense, to have unreasonable personal rules about a restaurant kitchen.
        • amanzi 6y ago
          Yes but if you tell the restaurant to not put kale in your food, and they go ahead and cook it in kale juice anyway, you'd be a bit annoyed right? Burger King aren't complaining about it - they are still promoting the plant-based aspects of the burger, but aren't claiming that it's a vegetarian meal. Nobody is making a big deal about it.
        • 3131s 6y ago
• EForEndeavour 6y ago
  I can't remember the last time I gave McDonald's money, but I'd try a plant-based item if they named it the McBean or the McGraze.
• jamyot 6y ago
  I agree McPlant is quite boring, and honestly, a little unappetizing. Although I'm happy they are (finally) offering a vegetarian burger, with all the time they waited to release one, they could have put more thought into the name.
• firethief 6y ago
  It couldn't be that stupid-sounding by accident. I think the name is a defense against people feeling like it's a pretentious thing to order at McDonald's.
• jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
  Agreed it is a terrible name. Honestly I think food companies have no idea how to do vegan options. They keep trying to compete directly with meat and dairy and the results are just kind of unsettling. Just the phrase "no-meat meat" by itself is mildly horrifying. I prefer my food to be recognizable, describable. Taco Bell did a good job: they just give you a burrito full of beans. The only problem was they have no idea how to cook vegetables with seasonings so the bean burrito is just bland and nasty. For McDonald's, make an actual vegan sandwich: spinach, cucumbers, sprouts for texture, some kind of sauce, tomatoes, a dash of salt and pepper. Vegan food is just like meat-based food: if the recipe is good, and the cook does a good job, it tastes good.
• glitcher 6y ago
  McPlant sounds more like the name of a skate trick :)