Pizza Hut, Beyond Meat to debut plant-based pepperoni for pizzas

Pizza Hut has teamed up with Beyond Meat again to create another plant-based menu option. It was reported that the pizza restaurant chain tapped the Los Angeles-headquartered meat substitutes manufacturer to produce “meatless” pepperoni for its pizzas.

On Tuesday, Aug. 10, Beyond Meat and Yum! Brands, owner of Pizza Hut, revealed that they will be debuting a new type of pizza that will have the vegan version of the famous pepperoni flavor.

According to Yahoo Finance, the pizza restaurant will initially release the new pizza with plant-based pepperoni at 70 of its store outlets. Some of the locations mentioned include Houston, Texas, New York, Albany, Columbus, Jacksonville, Florida, and Macon, Georgia.

It was said that this vegan pepperoni pizza is the very first creation under the new partnership deal between Beyond Meat and Yum! Brands. The two parties agreed to co-produce plant-based food items for some of the company’s popular franchises, such as Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and KFC. They will be working together to release new vegan options over the next several years.

“Pizza Hut’s new Beyond Pepperoni Pizza delivers the same iconic taste as our original pepperoni that fans know and love,” Pizza Hut’s chief brand officer, Georgeanne Erickson, said in a press release. “With this new plant-based option, we’re giving customers more choices and more reasons to love Pizza Hut.”

Beyond Meat's chief innovation officer, Dariush Ajami, added that they are confident that customers who love Beyond Pepperoni will also love Pizza Hut’s classic pepperoni as it has the added benefits of vegan meat too. “We know there is strong consumer demand for pepperoni, and we’re thrilled to unveil a game-changing plant-based pepperoni topping as the next chapter in our innovation-focused partnership with Pizza Hut,” he said.

Meanwhile, prior to the new deal, Beyond Meat and Yum! Brands already joined forces and produced plant-based foods such as the KFC fried chicken in early 2020. This was released for a limited time in select locations - Nashville, Tennessee, and Charlotte, North Carolina. It happened again in November 2020 when the two released Beyond Pizza via Pizza Hut in select stores in London.