If you multiple these stats then we can have a real, effective change. if you compare our burger to an animal burger, we use 98 percent less land, 92 percent fewer emissions, 93 percent less water, so it's a very different burger when it comes to the environmental impacts. We looked at PLNT through the lens of climate change. We're all in support of figuring out climate change and as a chef, I looked at how we can contribute to helping the planet by looking at our food system and changing the way we eat. It's part of the better burger movement: better for the planet, better for you. If we set out to just cater to vegans and vegetarians, we wouldn't have a business at all. The Beet: Tell me more about PLNT BurgerĬhef Spike Mendelsohn: The idea was could we create something indulgent, delicious, and greasy – American burgers that happened to be plant-based. We launched three months before the pandemic with lots of success, we were generating around $6,000 a square foot and the concept was a hit right off the bat. We were the first-ever company to bring an entire team and concept into Whole Foods, which became PLNT Burger. Seth reached out to me and said ' have this opportunity to test within Whole Foods we had become really good friends by that point so I agreed to test it out. I think that's something he missed since he started and grew Honest Tea and sold it to Coca-Cola. I started doing content for Beyond so we all became familiar with each other.Īfter the IPO of Beyond, Seth had more time to think about how he wanted to go back into start-up mode. I was always that guy pitching new products to the market. But, he knew about my experience such as helping launch the first Beyond Meat sausage to Whole Foods when it came to market. There are all these ingredients I've never worked with before, like sorghum.Ĭhef Spike Mendelsohn: I'm a serial entrepreneur so when I got a taste of my first ever Beyond Meat burger I was like hey, we have to open a fast-food burger and Seth didn't really know me too well at that point. I've been cooking for a while so I compare it to an artist who paints with the same set of colors for their entire life and imagines someone came in and swapped their color palette with a bunch of new colors, that's kind of how I looked at the plant-based movement. There was a ton of ingredients I have never worked with in the past like Beyond Meat which really opened me up to this new world then before you know it people were sending me all kinds of products like vegan butter, vegan whipped cream, all sorts of stuff. As you know, vegetables make up about three-fourths of the plate but I never considered them as the center of the plate, as I do now. The Beet: How was the transition to plant-based chef?Ĭhef Spike Mendelsohn: I've been cooking vegetables my whole entire life as a chef. Since then 9 other PLNTs have opened, but the first stand-alone brick-and-mortar storefront is in New York City, just south of Union Square. In the conversations that followed, the two decided to partner on a fast-food chain to bring this sustainable meat alternative to the world and launched it in Whole Foods in the Silver Springs, MD area just outside DC. Mendelsohn recalls being in shock at how delicious the Beyond burgers tasted, and with his wife's support, he got involved with Beyond Meat, helping launch the brand's vegan sausage in Whole Foods and pitching new products and placements. He has since nicknamed Mendelsohn "the burger king." When Mendelsohn got the meat alternative home, he was impressed at the texture and how similarly it cooked and tasted just like real meat "It just so happened to be that Spike's wife was vegan," Goldman recalls. At the time the company was preparing for its IPO. Goldman, sitting near Mendelsohn, had a secret weapon under his chair: a pack of Beyond Meat burgers, and he told the chef to go home and cook these and let him know what he thought. The start of Mendelsohn's new plant-based venture dates back three years when he was speaking at a food conference in Washington D.C., where founders and investors were on the panel, including entrepreneur Seth Goldman, co-founder of Honest Tea, and at the time, the executive chairman of Beyond Meat.
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