Beyond Meat finally unveiled its highly-anticipated plant-based chicken earlier this year when it released Beyond Chicken Tender to US restaurants. Now, the plant-based giant is expanding its vegan chicken to include several retailers nationwide following positive consumer response. The innovative food brand revealed its inaugural plant-based chicken product in 2012 but spent the next decade developing and perfecting the recipe to provide consumers with a vegan chicken product that replicated the taste, texture, and cooking ability of conventional chicken.

“Following the success of our plant-based chicken in restaurants, fans were eager to get their hands on a retail product that’s readily accessible and can be cooked at home anytime,” Chief Growth Officer at Beyond Meat Deanna Jurgens said. “We’re thrilled to be answering consumer demand by launching Beyond Chicken Tenders at prominent retailers nationwide, continuing our momentum in the plant-based poultry category.”

Beyond Chicken Tenders will soon be available at select retailers nationwide, providing consumers the chance to prepare the signature plant-based chicken products at home. The company decided to increase its products’ accessibility following the extremely successful foodservice debut. The company’s product immediately won the 2021 Food and Beverage Award for its innovative recipe and versatility across the food market.

The plant-based chicken tender also boasts a high nutritional value as compared to its animal-based counterpart. The Beyond Chicken Tenders contain 50 percent less saturated fat than traditional chicken tenders. The company also excludes all GMOs, antibiotics, cholesterol, and hormones in the production of its plant-based chicken. The company also began incorporating faba beans to provide a proper protein source.

“We think it’s important to continue offering the consumer a diversity of proteins,” Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown said in an interview. “You’ll see, in the coming years, we’ll come out with products that have different proteins altogether. We’re trying to build out a plant-based option for consumers across the meat aisle — wherever they’re consuming something that is animal protein, we want to offer a plant-based version of it.”

Alongside the Beyond Chicken Tender retail expansion, the company announced that it would be increasing its retail distribution across all its products. The company plans to increase its product availability at Walmart stores nationwide. Specifically, the company said that it would increase the accessibility of its Beyond Breakfast Sausage Patties by 70 percent. The brand plans to continue reaching out to all consumers directing most of its distribution attention to accessible and affordable retailers like Walmart.

“If you look at Beyond Meat’s strategy, beginning back in 2009, we have never been about the high-end restaurants,” Brown said. “While we appreciate that and understand it’s important for our culture, we have always been about providing consumers the food that they love, where they are shopping, and for the mainstream. And there’s nothing that’s more representative of that than Walmart.”

Over recent years, Beyond’s plant-based chicken sector has expanded across several food sectors by developing a series of innovative vegan poultry products. Earlier this year, the company debuted Beyond The Original Orange Chicken at Panda Express locations in California and New York City. The new plant-based chicken dish experienced high sales volumes, selling out at all participating locations in Southern California.

The company also debuted it Beyond Chicken Tenders by partnering with approximately 400 restaurants nationwide. The entrance into the food sectors allowed customers across the United States to try the company’s long-awaited plant-based chicken.

Starting in October, the Beyond Chicken Tender will become available at select Walmart, Safeway, NorCal, Harris Teeter, Giant Foods, ShopRite, and Jewel-Osco locations. The company announced that following this initial store launch that consumers can expect additional availability later this year.

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