Taco Bell Is Making a Play for Vegetarians
The fast-food chain is delivering on its promise to make ordering easier for vegetarians and flexitarians.
Joshua Blanchard
One of the things on Taco Bell’s list of resolutions for 2019, which it released in January, naturally, was this: “Be even easier and better for vegetarians and flexitarians.”
The fast-food chain went on to pledge that, sometime time this year, it would test a “dedicated vegetarian menu” and feature new veggie-friendly items, noting that it was already “the only American Vegetarian Association-certified” quick-service restaurant, with “more than 8 million vegetarian combinations” and enough “gratifying meatless options” to “customize a new meal every day for nearly 20,000 years.”
Now, even as many of the rest of us struggle to remember what our New Year’s resolutions were, Taco Bell is delivering on its promise, launching two new meat-free menu items, the Vegetarian Crunchwrap Supreme ($3.70) and the Vegetarian Quesarito ($3.05), and highlighting a third, the 7-Layer Burrito ($3.22), on its new vegetarian menu.
The new vegetarian menu is currently being tested at 200 locations in the Dallas area. Menu boards at the Dallas test locations will also include a green “V” symbol alongside items that have been certified by the American Vegetarian Association, National Restaurant News reports. The Dallas vegetarian-menu test will continue for about two months and then incorporate feedback before expanding nationally.
The effort follows last year’s effort to make ordering vegetarian at Taco Bell locations easier by adding a “make it meatless” option on the restaurant’s app, NRN notes, adding that about 9 percent of all items ordered at Taco Bell locations are vegetarian. (The bean burrito, a classic vegetarian option, is Taco Bell’s second-most-ordered menu item, right behind the crunchy taco.)
Overall, the Taco Bell menu now contains 38 vegetarian ingredients; 28 of those are vegan.
Between the Impossible Burger making its way onto menus at Burger King and Red Robin and this, it’s definitely a new day for vegetarian fast-food eaters. Bring on the meatless meals!
Photo courtesy of Taco Bell
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