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Beyond Meat is on the menu all day at Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’sBeyond Meat is on the menu all day at Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s

CKE adds breakfast burritos and biscuit sandwiches

Gloria Dawson

December 18, 2019

1 Min Read
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Carl’s Jr. has been a prominent figure in the plant-based crazed. The brand, owned by CKE Restaurants, launched its first Beyond Meat burger, the Beyond Famous Star, in January and has since sold 6.7 million. In October, the brand added a second burger to the menu, the Beyond BBQ Cheeseburger. Now Carl’s and its brother brand, Hardee’s Jr., is launching an all-day menu with Beyond Meat products. 

“We were always flirting with the idea of breakfast,” said Patty Trevino, SVP of brand marketing at CKE Restaurants. 

“Our culinary team worked hand-in-hand with [Beyond Meat's] development team to create a new recipe that would work for Carl’s Jr. And that’s when we also started thinking through bringing the entire platform, both the burger and the sausage, to the Hardee’s side," she said.

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Hardee’s has been testing a Beyond burger, but starting this month, its Original Beyond Thickburger will be on the permanent menu along with a Beyond breakfast burrito and Beyond biscuit sandwiches with and without egg. At Carl’s, the two Beyond burgers are joined by a Beyond breakfast burrito and Beyond sausage, egg and cheese biscuit sandwich. The menu and its marketing has subtle differences like the salsa added to the burrito at Carl’s and the focus on the biscuit sandwiches at Hardee’s.

Related:Carl's Jr. is the latest to expand plant-protein menu

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At Hardee’s the messaging will be around introducing customers to Beyond. But at Carl’s, where customers are a bit more familiar with the product, Carl’s is releasing a humorous campaign poking fun at the juicing trend. The message is: “Don’t drink your plants eat them,” said Trevino. The campaign will be released soon. 

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About the Author

Gloria Dawson

Gloria Dawson is a senior editor at Nation’s Restaurant News, Restaurant Hospitality and Supermarket News. She writes and edits breaking news and feature stories and conceptualizes and manages various sections and special issues of NRN magazine.

She joined the restaurant and food group in 2018 after writing for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Eater and various other publications. She earned her master's degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and her BFA in art history and photography from the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University.

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