McDonald’s golden arches used to boast about how many billions of burgers the company has sold. Now a former top McDonald’s executive is hoping to bring billions of vegetarian burgers to consumers worldwide.

Don Thompson worked at McDonald’s for 25 years, including almost three years as CEO, according to Business Insider. Earlier this week, the plant-based food company startup Beyond Meat announced adding Thompson to its Board, with hopes of bringing his industry expertise to their drive to bring vegan options to markets that are currently less familiar with meat alternatives.

Thompson left McDonald’s in March, but can work for the new company despite a non-compete clause he signed, because the fast food burger giant does not consider vegetarian food as competition. While Burger King’s vegetarian customers can get a BK Veggie burger, McDonald’s does not offer any veggie burgers.

Beyond Meat hopes to have its products in McDonald’s within 5 years, according to Ethan Brown, the company’s CEO. Thompson is expected to add the industry know-how and connections to help bring the company’s vegan alternatives to mainstream markets, whether through McDonald’s or other partnerships.

Investors have recently been flocking to meat-free food companies. Beyond Meat’s funders include Bill Gates and Twitter founder Biz Stone, among others. Gates has also invested in other meatless food makers, including Impossible Foods, which is attempting to mimic the taste of red meat through development of “plant blood,” and Hampton Creek, which makes eggless mayonnaise and cookie dough.

Creating sustainable, tasty meat substitutes is the goal of all three companies. Beyond Meat’s Brown notes that all of the chemical constituents of meat exist in the plant world, so substitution should be possible.

Still, today just 5 percent of Americans identify as vegetarian, down from 6 percent a bit over a decade ago. Thus analysts question the viability of food makers who attempt to sell the public on meat alternatives, even tasty ones.