McDonald’sExpanding its McPlant plant-based McBurger test, as part of its partnership Beyond Meat.

Fast-food giant McDonald’s will start serving the burger starting Feb. 14 at 600 locations throughout the San Francisco Bay, Dallas-Fort Worth and Dallas-Fort Worth regions. The goal is to understand consumer demand for the new menu item. In November, eight restaurants were selected to test the concept. This was so that the chain would be able to assess the potential impact on operations.

This announcement marks the latest in McDonald’s careful approach to plant-based meat trends. While fast-food restaurants raced to include the trending item on their menus, the company took its time learning about meat substitutes’ longevity and consumer demand. Burger King rival, owned by Restaurant Brands InternationalAdditional the Impossible Whopper to its menu more than two years ago.

McPlant’s burger is made with peas, potatoes and rice. It has the same texture as beef. American cheese is also available as an optional topping. Limited time offer: Customers who live in one of the test markets can purchase the burger while stocks last.

Beyond Meat believes that a larger-scale testing is an opportunity for it to win over consumers using its meat alternatives, even though this test only represents a tiny fraction of McDonald’s U.S. 14,000 restaurants. Wall Street analysts are now bearish about the stock because of rising competition and declining U.S. grocery store sales.

Beyond has been hired in preparation of a bigger launch with McDonald’s, and other fast-food menu items later this year. Tyson Foods veteran Doug Ramsey as its chief operating officer in December. Ramsey was part of the team that managed the supply relationships with McDonald’s.

McDonald’s and Beyond announced a three-year partnership in February. McPlant Burgers have been sold internationally by McPlant, which is a burger chain that has opened in Sweden, Denmark, Austria and the Netherlands. Before the official announcement of the McPlant lineMcDonald’s in Canada tested an entirely meatless burger using a Beyond patty. The pilot was ended by McDonald’s in April 2019. Since then, it stated that its P.L.T. program has been discontinued. burger.

In premarket trading, shares of Beyond rose 2% In the premarket trading, Beyond shares were up 2%. The stock’s market value has dropped to $4.08 Billion by falling 54% over the past 12 months.

Premarket trading saw McDonald’s share rise by less than 1 percent. Its market capitalization is $197 billion. The stock of the burger chain has also risen 19%.