"Taco Bell kicked off the New Year promising a vegetarian menu on the horizon. This week, that promise inches closer to reality as the quick-service giant begins testing its first-ever dedicated vegetarian menu in the Dallas market beginning Thursday.

Notably, Dallas is a top 10 market for Mexican cuisine and a top 30 market for vegetarian/vegan cuisine.

Taco Bell’s new (so-called) in-store American Vegetarian Association-certified vegetarian menu features three menu items: the Vegetarian Crunchwrap Supreme, Vegetarian Quesarito and the 7-Layer Burrito. Suggested retail prices are $3.70, $3.22 and $3.05, respectively.

The company says that while these three items are being tested on the new in-store vegetarian menu board, they are not the only vegetarian items offered at Taco Bell. In fact, Taco Bell sells 350 million vegetarian items a year, and about 9% of all items ordered at the chain are either vegetarian or made vegetarian through a substitution or removal—an increase from 7% in 2017.

This trajectory is consistent with macrotrends influencing the entire restaurant industry. According to Nielsen, 39% of American consumers are trying to add more plant-based foods into their diets, while the number of consumers identifying as vegan jumped by a staggering 600% in the past three years."

Read the full article by Alicia Kelso here.

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