How many hogs does it take to make a breakfast sandwich?... Trick question. At Dunkin', it's none for the newest addition. Through a partnership with plant-based Beyond Meat, the coffee icon is piloting a meat-free sausage sammie. It hits 163 Manhattan locations next Wednesday (yes, there are that many there), joining fellow chains Hardee's, Carl's Jr., and Tim Hortons by putting Beyond on the menu.
2 key ingredients... highlight why this particular partnership is special for both brands.
- Breakfast: It's the only meal in fast food that's actually growing (breakfast sales rose 1% last year, but were flat for all the other meals) — So Dunkin' is giving Beyond Meat prime-time menu real estate.
- Price: $4.29. That'll get you one Beyond Sausage sandwich. And it's the same price you'd pay for any other Dunkin' sandwich — Dunkin' isn't charging a premium for fancy non-meat meat (Beyond's CEO nailed it with 👇this👇 quote):
“It takes a lot of money to buy a Tesla — It takes $4.29 to buy this. And you can basically be making the same statement about who you are, what you care about, where your values are.”
Dunkin’ is America's food democratizer... The chain takes exclusive trends and brings them mainstream. Case study: espresso. After Starbucks and your local obscure-bean artisan coffee shop dominated unpronounceable espresso options, Dunkin' jumped in last year — now it's trained 100K employees on 9K espresso machines to make sub-$4 lattes. It's the same goal for plant-based meats.