Burger King’s most popular menu item is having a vegetarian makeover. This week, the fast food company will be introducing a Whopper that boasts a vegetarian patty supplied by Impossible Foods. The meatless burger will be known as The Impossible Whopper in celebration of the collaboration of the two companies.
The introduction of this meatless burger to Burger King’s menu represents the growth of the plant-based industry. While many vegan restaurants and companies have been coming into fruition in the last few years, Burger King is one of the first major fast food chains (aside from McDonald’s and White Castle) to experiment with plant-based alternatives for meat in their original recipes.
Unlike McDonald’s and White Castle, who each offered plant-based alternatives but only at select locations, Burger King is planning to eventually roll out the Impossible Burger at more than 7,200 locations.
According to Fernando Machado, Burger King’s chief marketing officer, testing of the Impossible Whopper has been very successful so far, with no customers (or even employees) able to tell the difference between the regular beef Whopper and the Impossible Whopper.
The Impossible Whopper comes as very exciting news for the plant-based industry, considering that it marks the unexpected alliance between a fast food chain that prides itself on using 100% beef in every Whopper and a food company that only produces 100% plant-based foods. In short, this burger represents a monumental shift of the food industry toward plant-based alternatives. “I have high expectations that it’s going to be big business, not just a niche product,” Fernando Machado said.
The Impossible Whopper, which has the same amount of protein as the regular Whopper but with 90 percent less cholesterol and 15 percent less fat, is being made available at 59 Burger King locations in the St. Louis region. If all goes well, the company plans to quickly roll out the meatless burger to every Burger King in the country.
