Daily Camera (Boulder)

Chick-fil-a tests its first plant-based sandwich

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Chick-fil-a is jumping on the plant-based bandwagon.

The Atlanta chain said Thursday that it’s testing its first plant-based entrée a breaded cauliflowe­r sandwich at restaurant­s in Denver; Charleston, S.C.; and the Greensboro, N.C., area. The test begins Feb. 13.

Chick-fil-a said its culinary team spent four years developing the sandwich after guests told the chain they wanted to add more vegetables to their diets. Chick-fil-a tested mushrooms, chickpeas and chopped vegetables formed into patties but kept returning to cauliflowe­r for its mild flavor.

Like Chick-fil-a’s signature chicken sandwich, the cauliflowe­r steak is marinated, breaded, pressure-cooked and then served on a bun with two pickle slices.

Chick-fil-a is a relative latecomer to the plantbased fast food scene. Burger King started selling its Impossible Whopper featuring a plantbased burger made by Impossible Foods in 2019. Starbucks launched an Impossible sausage sandwich in 2020. Mcdonald’s debuted its Mcplant burger developed with Beyond Meat in the United Kingdom in 2021. And KFC began selling Beyond Meat nuggets last year.

State officials will allow nearly 25,000 families who’ve submitted applicatio­ns for Colorado’s new free preschool program to reopen them and make changes on them because the applicatio­n system initially showed incorrect offerings for some preschools.

Families will be notified by email — possibly as early as Thursday or Friday — that their applicatio­ns have been unlocked and that they can re-rank their five preschool choices or make different choices altogether, said Hope Shuler, a spokeswoma­n for the Colorado Department of Early Childhood.

They’ll have until Tuesday, the last day of the first applicatio­n window, to make changes and resubmit their applicatio­ns.

The decision to reopen preschool applicatio­ns for thousands of parents represents a bump in the rollout of the state’s universal preschool program, which some providers and parents have criticized as rushed and confusing.

Shuler said some preschools participat­ing in the new program didn’t realize they had to list the specific number of seats they have in each category — half-day morning, half-day afternoon, full-day, and so on. Those errors meant that families may have signed up for preschool offerings that aren’t available.

“I’m not placing blame on providers. I’m not taking all the blame on us as a department for not being more specific,” Shuler said. “It’s a new program and there are growing pains.”

The state notified preschools on Jan. 30 that they needed to update their seat numbers by Feb. 6. Staff working for the state have manually made those correction­s this week.

Although the errors affected a subset of the nearly 25,000 applicants, she said the department is allowing everyone to make revisions because some parents incorrectl­y believed it was a first-come, first-served system and rushed through their preschool applicatio­ns the day the system opened Jan. 17.

Since then, 151 more preschools have signed up to participat­e, so parents who make revisions now may have more choices than they did the first time.

The new preschool program launches next fall and will offer 10 to 30 hours a week of class time to 4-yearolds and 10 hours a week to some 3-year-olds.

The first applicatio­n window for universal preschool runs through Feb 14.

Families who submitted applicatio­ns during that window will find out around March 17 what preschool their child was matched with.

The state plans to offer a second applicatio­n window starting Feb. 15, but hasn’t decided on the end date yet.

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