Fast food restaurants look to turn plant-based burgers into cash cows

The explosion of vegetarian and vegan options at fast food and quick service restaurants such as Carl’s Jr. and White Castle, along with investors’ growing interest in alternative meat makers such as Beyond Meat Inc., shows that businesses see consumer interest in non-meat items as the foundation of a U.S. market that could be worth $34 billion by 2030 by one analyst’s estimate.