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Food Technology Change.org

Can an activist site change In-N-Out and other fast food menus?

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By Kyle O'Brien | Creative Works Editor

September 21, 2016 | 3 min read

Fans of California-based In-N-Out Burger are dedicated hamburger eaters. The chain’s simple menu – cheeseburgers, hamburgers, shakes and fries – has dedicated customers, one might even consider them cult-like in their love for the joint, that keep its empire growing on the west coast.

But a group a vegans and vegetarians have started a petition on Change.org to add a meat-free burger or a full meat-free meal.

The chain currently only offers non burger eaters a cheese sandwich or fries, but the petition by the non-profit Washington D.C.-based Good Food Institute states that the burger chain is “letting its fans down by failing to serve anything that would satisfy a burger-loving customer who wants a healthy, humane, and sustainable option,” according to a story by the Orange County Register.

In an interview with the paper, petition organizer and Good Food Institute spokesperson, Emily Byrd, said that the current vegetarian option isn’t satisfactory.

“I don’t think that satisfies people’s desire for a full entree,” she said, noting that the company has other sustainable practices, including sourcing its food as locally as possible, and that they already have high customer satisfaction standards are small enough to offer a meat-free option.

Whether the petition will work or not remains to be seen. Currently, the petition has 22,450 electronic signatures, and if they get 25,000 they will submit the petition to the Irvine-based company and its president Lynsi Snyder. In-N-Out has not commented as of yet to the LA media outlets.

Still, a DC-based organization trying to get a western regional chain to change its behaviors through social and digital media platforms may spark others to try the same and get restaurants to change their business and marketing practices by appealing to a more mass crowd.

But perhaps such a meat-based chain may be the wrong place to start, according to its fans, who go there because they love burgers. Plus, not all vegans and vegetarians are on board with the petition. As one commenter on the Change.org site noted:

“As a vegetarian myself, this is a stupid petition. Why, as a vegan, would you want to support a company that slaughters cows by the thousands? I wouldn't ask Lucille's BBQ to make me vegan ribs. I just won't eat there,” posted Barrett M. from Fullerton, CA.

Food Technology Change.org

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