Arby'sAs the vegan movement rises, so too – inevitably – does the resistance.
And while some meat-lovers decided the best way to do this is just to go and eat some raw meat in front of vegans, one restaurant is getting a bit more thoughtful when it comes to consuming meat.
Beloved American eatery Arby’s has developed the Marrot – a carrot made of meat – because, y’know, if you can have plant-based meat substitutes, why not have it the other way round? Answering the question that no one was asking, Arby’s went ahead and developed the Marrot.
Tuck into this:
Looking like one of the perfectly shaped, bright orange carrots Bugs Bunny would eat, the Marrot is simply shaped turkey breast, which is boiled, rolled in dried carrot juice powder, and then roasted to finish. Add a sprig of parsley for the classic green stalk, and there you have it.
It looks like the Marrot could be the first in a line of ‘Meat Vegetables’, which the fast food chain is calling ‘Megetables’, because everyone loves a good portmanteau.
Arby'sJim Taylor, Chief Marketing Officer for Arby’s, told Inspire Stories:
Plant-based meats are the latest incarnation of making vegetables look like what Americans really want, which is great, tasty meat.
Universally, people know we’re supposed to eat vegetables every day. But 90 percent of American’s don’t eat the recommended amount. So we said if others can make meat out of vegetables, why can’t we make vegetables out of meat?
To achieve the dream of a good meaty carrot, Jim turned to Neville Craw, Vice President of Culinary Innovation & Brand Executive Chef for Arby’s, to help turn Jim’s vision into a reality.
Neville said:
Jim called me and said it’s time for us to change this paradigm of turning vegetables into meat. We kicked around some ideas and landed on creating the first-ever meat carrot, or Marrot™.
Arby'sNeville added:
We’ve never created anything like this. But most of the product development Arby’s works on is new to the industry. That’s the exciting part of this job; we’re always innovating and hungry for more knowledge.
Jim and Neville say they’re working hard to keep the ‘megetable’ dream alive, and are working behind the scenes to develop more.
As Jim said:
We want to continue to innovate in the space of meat craft that never existed before in ways that are surprising and delicious and exceed the expectations of what you can get through a drive-thru.
Culinary innovation is one of the key tenants of Arby’s. We test more than 1,000 menu items per year, and we remain committed to providing our guests with the highest quality meats in the industry.
Clever marketing? Ruthless trolling? No one asked for a Marrot, much like no one ever asked for Crocs, but here we are.
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.