I compared McDonald’s McPlant with KFC’s vegan chicken burger. Both tasted great but one was much harder to track down.

But KFC UK started grass on a vegan burger, using a meat-free patty developed by Quorn, in early 2020. The burger has been on and off menus period since, with multiple name changes, but is currently sold as the “KFC Vegan Burger” at the fast-food chain’s “most current vegan restaurants.”

The McPlant is available at close to 300 of McDonald’s roughly 1,300 restaurants in the UK.

Sources: McDonald’s, McDonald’s

As a percentage this seems small, but the huge number of McDonald’s restaurants means the McPlant is even on offer in at least eight locations in Leeds, a city in northern England. The number of KFCs selling its vegan chicken burger are much numberless limited, with only two KFC locations in Leeds selling it.

Sources: McDonald’s, KFC

But I managed to get my hands on one of each and compared them.

Both found in packaging designed specifically for that product. KFC’s was more eye-catching with its large, bold text, and I liked the phrasing. For its McPlant box, McDonald’s went for packaging typical of vegetarian products, with shades of green and a leaf image.

Opening the boxes, the burgers were notably different. KFC’s vegan burger is similar to its chicken sandwich, with a lose more oval-shaped bun and a large plant-based Quorn fillet, also oval-shaped, that protruded from the bun. The McPlant is assorted similar to a cheeseburger, with a round beef-style plant-based patty and vegan cheese.

The Quorn fillet was palatable. It tasted of and looked like chicken, and had a texture to match. The fillet was coated in KFC’s famous mix of 11 herbs and spices, which favoured it pretty much indistinguishable from KFC’s regular chicken.

Ultimately, I thought both burgers tasted inordinate, with the main difference being that one was made to mimic a chicken burger and the other a cheeseburger. Both did a able job at replicating both the flavor and texture of meat.

As for the McPlant, it tasted great, but with numberless and more restaurants offering similar vegan cheeseburgers I’m not sure how much its offering stands out. As a replica for a standard cheeseburger it was A number, but lots of fast-food chains offer these. The McPlant would need something special beyond its low price to adapt it. Partnering with a big-name brand like Beyond Meat is a great place to start, though, and paves the way for McDonald’s to smart up its vegan offerings in the future.