Is this the end for smashed avocado?

Last night as we were watching television, David remarked that he had just seen an add advertising smashed avocado at Hungry Jack's. I must admit I didn't see the ad - I was probably concentrating on my sudoku - but when he mentioned it I thought it was intriguing.

So I did my usual googling and found a few interesting things, including a couple of extra potential subjects.

The first thing to note is that not only is the Hungry Jack's ad for avocado but it's also vegan. Indeed I think the main push was the vegan component. Vegan, of course, is currently in the news through the recent protests from vegans in the cities. And vegan is definitely a growing thing, though I still don't quite understand why vegan rather than vegetarian. As long as you source your dairy products ethically anyway. See - another potential topic. I saw one article that said that this was probably the very first vegan TV ad in Australia. Take note. You read it here.

Anyway the ad was for Vegan breakfast muffins, one of which included the dreaded smashed avocado. It's described by Hungry Jack's as:

"An English muffin with a veggie patty, vegan cheese, vegan mayonnaise, avocado, lemon garlic dressing, fresh lettuce and tomato."

Which, you would have to say is a pretty factual description with no extra descriptive adjectives to stimulate your taste buds and with the emphasis on the vegan aspect. No doubt the television ad had a bit more stimulus.

I looked further at their menu and they do in fact have other smashed avocado, non vegan products. These are also new and include two chicken burgers and two chicken wraps. The difference between each pair is whether the chicken is grilled or fried, but they are billed as blt and avocado.

hungry jack's bacon & avocado

hungry jack's chicken wrap

Having seen that they seem to be going full tilt at this I thought I would look at the competition - namely Macdonalds and found that back in 2015 or thereabouts they tried a gourmet breakfast, amongst whose offerings there was a smashed avocado on toast with spinach, feta and tomato.

It looks to me as if the smashed avocado contribution to this offering was somewhat minimal, but nevertheless they did seem to be attempting the same as you would get in some trendy café. And I have no doubt that it would have been cheaper. However, when I looked at their current menu I found that there is no avocado to be seen, though it's possibly in their salads. What happened I wonder? And yes, I did look under the MacCafé part of the organisation too. Is this a portent of what will happen to Hungry Jack's?

Looking at other fast food chains such as KFC, Subway and Nando's I found mixed results. I actually couldn't see anything in the Subway offerings, (I may be wrong because I did not look at every single thing), which surprised me because you would have thought that they, at least would have had avocado. I mean Subway just does sandwiches really don't they? KFC - nothing - well no surprises there. But Nando's are into it in a fairly comprehensive way. Nando's chicken in a wrap, a burger or pita bread with avocado, feta and salad. Mind you I couldn't see a lot of avocado in the picture, other than at the back. Not a lot in the actual products. But then avocados are expensive aren't they? Even now, when avocado is a really big thing, and when presumably the growers have been gearing up their production, one avocado will generally cost you much more than $1.00.

It remains to be seen whether these innovations succeed. I am assuming the MacDonalds one didn't. But it is interesting to ponder on whether it will be a threat to all of those 'posher' places that push smashed avocado, or whether it means that smashed avocado becomes a food for everyone, not just the trendies who generally have more money. Will it become a food of the poor?

And the last thing I discovered which was extremely interesting is that Coles is about to launch a new range of convenience foods that includes smashed avocado on toast.

The plastic container is presumably the finished product - with the components distributed across the marble, with the mix in the front. Looks like plenty of avocado. Now how are they going to keep the avocado from going brown? Lemon juice only does so much. It must have to have additional chemicals of some kind. Looks tempting though.

But isn't it sad that Coles admits that it is aiming these foods as those who say they have no time to cook? How long does it take to toast a slice of bread, smash some avocado and get some lumps of feta out of the fridge? What do we have to do people to get people to do things for themselves?

And now that it's going so mainstream will it disappear? I don't think so. It's here for good. Look at pizza, sushi, tandoori chicken and guacamole (more avocado). Indeed I also saw that this is an Australian dish that has been exported to the world - smashed avocado on toast that is. But it will be interesting to see if Hungry Jack's succeeds where MacDonald's failed. That site I saw that was amazed at a Vegan add, was urging its followers to go buy a Hungry Jack's vegan breakfast muffin - with or without avocado.