Beyond Meat’s plant-based products have expanded through various restaurants and grocery chains, but now fans of its product can order directly. Its competitor Impossible Foods launched direct-to-consumer sales back in June, as both companies pitch their faux-meat to customers who may be avoiding those same restaurants and grocery stores as much as possible.

Their offerings are fairly similar, with several “family size” bundles that start around $50 — enough to defray the cost of free two-day shipping in the continental US and likely high enough that they don’t directly compete with local grocery stores.

According to The Verge, the updated veggie meatballs will be made out of apples, oats, peas and potatoes. They’ll be available both as an in-restaurant meal and a frozen package to make at home. IKEA hopes that the new taste will be more attractive to meat eaters, and help them make the transition to a more plant-based diet.

Meat production has a major impact on the environment — the resources to support livestock, the waste animals emit and the pollution caused by shipping meat around the world are all major contributors to climate change. The UN has even called for society to eat less meat in order to curb global warming, especially as the world’s population increases. IKEA hopes that its new plant-based meatballs will help the company become carbon positive by 2030 and help customers have a smaller impact on the planet.

KFC plans to study the results of the test to decide what happens next, which could include a larger test or a full-fledged rollout. Although it didn’t say what criteria would be involved, it’s not necessarily a matter of looking at the lineups — KFC likely wants signs that people liked Beyond Fried Chicken enough to come back, not just that they were willing to give it a try. The rush to track down Popeye’s coveted sandwich might have helped KFC’s chances by putting people in the mood for chicken, even if it’s the simulated kind.

Yes, this is an opportunity for KFC and Beyond to toot their collective horn. If it does lead to an expanded rollout, though, it could represent more evidence that plant-based meat replacements have broad appeal outside of burgers. They’re still far from ubiquitous at this stage, but they could soon be common enough that it’s really just a question of whose meat-free meal you’re eating.

KFC had acknowledged talking to suppliers months ago to investigate meatless chicken, but didn’t have any definitive plans until now.

This could mark a triumphant return for Beyond Meat’s chicken efforts. It pulled its meatless chicken from grocery stores earlier in 2019 after deciding it didn’t meet the company’s standards. Clearly, it’s ready to jump back into the fray. That could be particularly important as rivals like Impossible Foods expand into other forms of meat replacements. If Beyond doesn’t make headway in a given food category, others will be happy to take its place.

There’s no mention of whether or not the Beyond Meat-based sub will carry a premium over its regular counterparts.

In many ways, this is just the latest phase of a rapidly growing market for plant-based meat substitutes. Now that Beyond and Impossible burgers are increasingly commonplace, the companies are expanding into other categories where their meat-alikes might work, whether it’s meatballs, pizza or sausage. It may just be a question of choosing the meat replacement that tickles your fancy, rather than scrambling to find one in the first place.

The creation also touts a simpler ingredient list and OK Kosher certification. You will have to spend more time cooking them, though, at four minutes per side.

You should see the next-gen Beyond Burger in meat aisles within the next two to three weeks, and you can recognize it by the red tab at the top (see above). It’s too soon to say if this will steal some of Impossible’s recent thunder, but Beyond certainly needs it. Grocery sales make up about half of the company’s business. While it has crucial deals with restaurants like A&W and Carl’s Jr, its success still relies heavily on people seeking veggie alternatives to their backyard barbecues.

The sausage ingredients are only mildly different to the burger’s. The key flavoring still comes from “heme” — the blood-like soy leghemoglobin which the company touts as its secret sauce — but in smaller quantities. The potato protein from the burger has been removed, which the company says gives the meat a bouncier texture.

“One of the important things was that although the sausage was new, really it was depending on the platform that we already had,” said David Lipman, Impossible’s chief science officer. “The ingredients are very, very similar, but the ratios are different and they’re different in ways that make pretty profound differences.”

Sausage meat became a viable next product in part because it shares these ingredients, according to CEO Pat Brown. He also said that the company’s “number one goal” is still to expand production of its plant-based beef alternative.

“We had a couple of customers come to us that were asking for a sausage product,” he told Engadget. “Right now the biggest challenge for us, I would say, is scaling production. When we’re thinking of new product, a very big consideration is how does it fit into our workflow? We see a ready path to making this happen.”

Those similarities bode well for the company’s “meat platform” pitch. It would be a first demonstration that Impossible can make a whole other meat taste similar with only minimal tweaks to its ingredients and manufacturing process. If customers enjoy eating it, that is — how and where the Impossible sausage will be available is yet to be announced.

Read (and watch) the full Impossible Foods story: