In a nutshell: Whatever your opinion on plant-based meat substitutes, it's hard to ignore their increasing popularity. The latest brand to jump on the meat-free train is Pizza Hut, which is testing a new Garden Speciality Pizza that's topped with MorningStar Farm's "Incogmeato" Italian 'sausage.'
In addition to the plant-based toppings, the pizza is being served in a round box that was developed in partnership with automated pizza delivery startup Zume. The circular design offers several advantages over the traditional square boxes we're used to: it uses less overall packaging, keeps the pizza hotter, and is industrially compostable.
This veggie pizza is starting life as a limited test. It will be available in one restaurant in Phoenix (3602 E. Thomas Road) tomorrow (October 23rd) at 11 AM local time. It costs $10 and will only be available "while stocks last." Given that KFC's Beyond Meat fried chicken, which was also available in one restaurant, sold out in just five hours, don't expect the Garden Speciality Pizza to last long.
No word on whether Pizza Hut will start selling the meatless pizza at other locations following the test---that might depend on how successful it is---but it did say it is looking at ways of rolling out the round box more widely in the near future.
All proceeds from the Garden Speciality Pizza will go to Arizona Forward, a Phoenix-based sustainability organization.
Back in January, plant-based burger maker Beyond Meat partnered with Carl Jr. to bring its animal-free products to over 1,000 outlets across the US, while last month saw the plant-based Impossible Burger make its grocery store debut.