But as the number of herbivores continues to increase around the world, even the biggest fast-food chains are accommodating new customers with alternative menu items. Citing Sweden’s overwhelming population of vegetarians for instance, McDonald’s has decided to debut a limited run of its own cruelty-free sandwich: the McVegan. Some see its success among vegetarians and meat-eaters alike as the wholesome future of fast food.

In 2017, McDonald’s teamed up with Swedish food company Orkla to create a brand-new kind of patty. There, inside a small, steel kitchen in Malmö, the team began searching for ways to craft the perfect non-burger.

“When you have meat as a base, the meat itself has a taste,” says Karl-Johan Freelander, product developer at Orkla. “When it comes to soy protein, the little taste it has… it’s not a very pleasant taste to be honest.”

To mitigate the blandness, Freelander pressed the soy protein together with flavourful onions, peppers and tomato powder – which gives it a uniquely red colour.

But Freelander says the secret to the McVegan’s hearty taste is something called umami. “Umami is what you often call the fifth flavour,” he says. “It’s the flavour of the savoury.” In place of real meat, Friedlander was able to mimic the umami sensation with ingredients like mushroom powder.