If you’re on a plant-based diet, McDonald’s probably isn’t one of your restaurants of choice. However, if you’re in India, you may actually have a few food options from McDonald’s once it opens its first veggie-only restaurant in the Sikh city of Amritsar next year.
“It will be the first time we have opened a vegetarian restaurant,†said McDonald’s spokesman Rajesh Kumar Maini. “There is a big opportunity for vegetarian restaurants as many Indians are vegetarian.â€
India has a large Hindu and Muslim population, so beef and pork are off the menu to many. McDonald’s is hoping to attract new customers and offer more choices to vegetarians by opening this new type of restaurant. It will open in the middle of next year near the Golden Temple in Amritsar, and if it goes well, another may be opened in Kashmir.
This isn’t the first time McDonald’s has tailored its menu according to dietary choices of the locals. The restaurant has also used chicken instead of beef at some locations in India, and offers a McPork sandwich in Japan.
Menu items in the new veggie McDonald’s include a McAloo Tikki burger made of a potato patty, and a Pizza McPuff, which is a vegetable and cheese pastry.
I have to say I’d be SHOCKED if a plant-based McDonald’s restaurant opened in the U.S., but it does seem like the fast food industry is starting to make some changes to keep up with growing unhealthy food concerns, so you never know. It also seems a little strange to open a vegetarian fast food chain in India, where affordable and easily accessible vegetarian food is available on nearly any corner, but I guess we should have known it wouldn’t be long before multinational fast food chains hopped in as well. If the speculation ends up being true that the world will eventually be forced into vegetarianism, McDonald’s may have a profitable new business venture.
Image CC licensed by Sean Ellis: McDonald’s in Mumbai, India
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