Why We Haven't Seen A Plant-Based Roast Beef Sandwich On Arby's Menu

If you couldn't tell by those "We Have the Meats" commercials, Arby's is a true carnivore's paradise. Between all the roast beef sandwiches and steak nuggets, the chain has continually reinforced its identity as the nation's arbiter of meat-first fast food. Judging by former President Rob Lynch's past comments, that's also probably a big reason why we haven't seen a plant-based roast beef option come out of the fast food chain's kitchens just yet.

In an interview with Fortune in 2019, Lynch — who was at Arby's between 2013 and 2019 — responded to rumors about Arby's and Impossible Foods discussing a meatless offering by saying, "It won't happen on my watch." Adding that "the only way [it would happen was] if I got fired for some reason," Lynch went on to explain that going plant-based would mess with the restaurant's meat-centric image. "You have to stand for something," he said. "We've turned this brand around by making big, high quality, meaty, abundant sandwiches. That's who we are."

This attitude probably influenced some of the anti-vegetarian marketing stunts rolled out during his tenure, including a "Vegetarian Support Hotline" for those craving Arby's brown sugar-glazed pepper bacon, as well as the infamous "Marrot," which was a "carrot" made from turkey. But perhaps the most pointed jab was the restaurant's Leap Day "vegetarian" menu that simply removed meat from their sandwiches, leaving poor vegetarians with nothing but the bun and some toppings.

As the man who introduced "We Have the Meats" into the cultural zeitgeist, Lynch was obviously focused on maintaining Arby's brand identity. After all, the classic roast beef sandwich is one of Arby's original menu items and integral to its core DNA, not to mention one of the chain's most recognizable and best-selling items. However, this may not be enough to keep Arby's from joining the number of fast food chains that have embraced plant-based options, especially with new leadership at the helm. As it turns out, current Arby's President David Graves previously helped introduce plant-based meat offerings to Pizza Hut in 2020 as its chief brand officer. Through a partnership with Beyond Meat, Pizza Hut became the first national pizza chain to provide a faux meat topping, with Graves going so far as to say that his friends and family couldn't tell the difference between regular sausage and the Beyond Italian Sausage.

Graves hasn't said anything yet, but there are business opportunities for him to consider, as a plant-based roast beef would open up an entirely new market and potentially help bring back customers who have been avoiding Arby's for its use of meat raised with antibiotics. So maybe there will soon come a day when Lynch's Fortune interview comes back to haunt him in the form of a plant-based roast beef that makes it so Arby's is no longer "proudly [putting] less vegetables on [its] sandwiches than anyone" else.