Amy’s Burger prepared for the forthcoming Amy’s Drive Thru from Amy’s Kitchen
The future of American style sustainable
food is coming to a drive-thru near you. The announcement by Amy's Foods, which is now ubiquitous in your local supermarkets frozen and canned food section, to open a fast food drive-thru in its home base of California seems to be arriving at the perfect time to coincide with the news that Americans are
reducing their consumption of meat and dairy.
Anyone who's spent time in the frozen-food aisle is likely already familiar with Amy's Kitchen, the Petaluma-based maker of vegetarian frozen entrees, soups, salsas, non-dairy ice cream, and even candy. But after nearly three decades of building a grocery-store empire, founders Andy and Rachel Berliner are planning on moving the company, which is named for their daughter, into the fast-food space. As the Press Democrat reports, the couple are plotting the first Amy's Drive Thru restaurant in Rohnert Park, right next to an In-N-Out Burger and a McDonald's. Located at Wilfred Avenue and Redwood Drive, right next to Home Depot and the Graton Resort & Casino, the 4,000-square-foot space is set to open in May, right before Amy, now 27, gets married.
Like the Amy's prepared foods, everything at Amy's Drive Thru will be vegetarian, organic, and GMO-free, with veggie burgers, fries fried in sunflower oil, personal pizzas, burritos, and salads on the menu. (The one exception is the sodas, which won't be organic but will be preservative-free.) Everything will be available in vegan and gluten-free versions, including hand-scooped shakes made with a choice of regular or non-dairy ice cream, and rice-flour-based buns for the burgers. And it'll be affordable as well, with burgers running $3 or so, burritos going for $5 and under, and a combo meal of a double cheeseburger, shake, and fries maxing out at $10.
We now know that meat and dairy production is a
major contributor to climate change and water and land degradation. The United Nations
states that we must reduce meat and dairy consumption to slow the worst effects of climate change and to prepare for increased world population.
It's been especially difficult for Americans who are used to a fast, over-worked and over-scheduled lifestyle. The fast-food lifestyle seems especially difficult to break. So the news that healthy, climate friendly, delicious, fast food will be available is manna from heaven.
Disclaimer: I am a Amy's devotee and can't wait for Amy's Drive-Thru to hit my neighborhood!
