Ikea is known around the world for two things: its furniture and its meatballs. Indeed, along with the BILLY bookcase and the POÄNG chair, meatballs are one of the company’s bestselling products, with roughly a billion meatballs sold per year. Now that a number of restaurants and fast-food chains have started adding plant-based products to their menus, Ikea wants to get in on the action.
Starting this fall, Ikea will start testing new plant-based “meatballs” at a number of stores before a global rollout in the summer of 2020. The veggie balls, which are made with ingredients such as wheat, peas, soy, and oats, are designed to mimic meat so closely that they might be mistaken for the real thing. The meatless meatball isn’t the first plant-based product Ikea has put on its menus. In fact, Ikea has already sold 7 million of its new veggie hot dog, exceeding all expectations.
