The alt-protein movement should go harder on making a hit sauceI recently read a Reddit thread about an NBA player who was doing a publicity stunt by working at a Raising Cane’s fast food restaurant. If you’ve never heard of it, Raising Cane’s is known for chicken fingers and there are 750+ locations in the US. https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/1lkl65d/koco_5_news_tomorrow_alex_caruso_will_suit_up_as/The discussion in the Reddit thread quickly turned to whether the food at Raising Cane’s is good or not. Some people love it, some hate it, but the overall sentiment was that no one actually goes there for the chicken. They go for the sauce, which is apparently like something devised by God himself.There’s something insane about this situation. If the people want something breaded and chewy dipped in sauce, there’s got to be a way to provide that without torturing a gazillion chickens in the process. I know the mouthfeel and taste of plant-based chicken is not like the real thing. But does the consumer of Raising Cane’s chicken care? Their own fans describe the chicken as “very average”, yet they eat enough of it to make Cane’s one of the fastest growing restaurant chains in the entire country.
>>21781138Maybe alt-protein companies should be spending more of their R&D budget on making an undeniably amazing sauce, which they could then package and sell with their mediocre plant based meat. The sauce would be such a hit that they’d boost sales and win converts away from animal based products because no one cares about the meat anyway.I’ve read endlessly about the organizations that are working to perfectly replicate meat. I commend them and hope they succeed. I’ve just not heard much about anyone trying to complement their offerings with a sauce so good that Redditors will be like, “yeah the protein is straight doo-doo, but the sauce is better than sex so what am I supposed to do, not eat it??”
>>21781142I feel like the run at Panda Express, where they offered a Beyond Meat Orange Chicken meal, shows this sauce idea has potential. The dish gained a big following and thousands of consumers signed a petition to make it a permanent menu item (sadly, they failed). It even garnered this glowing headline in Business Insider, from a non-vegan writer: I tried Panda Express' new Beyond Meat orange chicken. It was delicious and now I'm sold on plant-based chicken. https://www.businessinsider.com/taste-test-panda-express-beyond-meat-plant-based-orange-chicken-2021-7People liked that dish because of the iconic Panda Express orange chicken sauce. Beyond Meat’s chicken substitute was not making waves on its own. But paired with a beloved sauce, it gained huge momentum.
>>21781145My wife and I loved the Panda Beyond Chicken days, it was a favorite road trip mealI have never met someone who was excited about the taste of chicken. Especially in fast food form, it’s meant to be mild and forgettable. I feel like there is a way the animal movement can exploit the fact that fast food chicken sucks and people only eat it because it’s the convenient way to get the sauce they crave.I of course wish we could convince restaurants to replace chicken fingers and nuggets with plant based alternatives because it’s just a fried, chewy, tasty, unhealthy glob either way. So why not use the one that is more humane? Especially when plant-based nuggets sometimes beat chicken nuggets in blind taste tests! https://nationalpost.com/life/food/like-chicken-but-tastier-plant-based-nuggets-outperform-chicken-nuggets-in-worlds-largest-blind-tastingThis top voted comment in a Reddit thread about that recent plant-based victory in a nuggets taste battle sums things up nicely:Amen. Realistically though, people are resistant to change and plant-based stuff is still expensive. So there is not likely to be a mass takeover from veggie nuggets anytime soon. At least, not on their own. That’s why we need to somehow conquer the sauce! And then hell, I dunno, market the hell out of it and start a vegan fast food chain? Am I totally delusional?
>>21781152I’m not saying it would be easy. Maybe there is not much room left to innovate in the sauce market. But those folks at Raising Cane’s did it, and now they sell 5 million chicken fingers per day. Chicken fingers that are mediocre at best.I think addicting consumers to a sauce in order to carve out some market share for the good guys is a moonshot project worth funding.https://expandingcircle.substack.com/p/chicken-is-just-a-sauce-delivery
>>21781154
>nothing but reddit spaced paragraphs with hyperlinks and redddit screenshotsnever seen a more blatant samefag in my life trying to keep a thread alive
>>21781138>The discussion in the Reddit thread quickly turned to whether the food at Raising Cane’s is good or not. Some people love it, some hate it, but the overall sentiment was that no one actually goes there for the chicken. They go for the sauce, which is apparently like something devised by God himself.I don't know why you're treating this like some kind of fucking magic secretThe chicken is purposely bland so that it won't clash with any sauce and the variety of sauces means fat fucks can flavor their bland-ass chicken with whatever brand of corn syrup or vinegar-blasted concoction they want to scarf down>Make a really good sauce to cover the flavor of fake meatThe fake meat being too bland is not a problem, and in fact a bland fake meat with the right texture is the goddamned tofu holy grail.The issue is that fake meats have a fucked-up taste that cuts through everything, a fucked-up texture that ruins the dish, or both.
>>21781138Chicken BREAST for sure.The other ACTUALLY GOOD parts of the chicken - no
>>21781154>>21781210Just to make it perfectly clear they did not innovate in the sauce gameThey made a bland product and offer a massive variety of standard-ass sauces.
>>21781138Raising Canes is greasy garbage that made me diarrhea. The sauce is actually quite disgusting.
>>21781138>>21781142I’m a little surprised no one does breaded breading, like a thick piece of crunchy breading that you can eat with sauce. The breading is definitely my favorite part of fried chicken
