Burger King announces its first vegetarian burger

Apr 01, 2019

By Ari Rees

This isn’t an April Fools’ joke.

What happened: This week, Burger King announced the introduction of their very first plant-based Whopper burger called “The Impossible Burger.”

Burger King is partnering with Silicon startup Impossible Foods, who will be supplying the vegetarian patty to the chain, according to The New York Times.
The Impossible Burger will initially be available at 59 Burger King restaurants in the St. Louis area. If all goes well in St. Louis, the company plans a rapid expansion to the rest of the country, according to The New York Times.
Burger King will charge about $1 more for the burger, according to The New York Times.

Burger King announces it will have a plant based Whooper for the first time.

The Impossible Whopper, made with the plant based Impossible Burger, will be tested in 59 St. Louis restaurants starting today.

This is not an April Fool’s Joke. pic.twitter.com/fX94mHVyC0

— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) April 1, 2019

What will it taste like: According to Burger King’s chief marketing officer Fernando Machado, it’s difficult to tell the difference between The Impossible Burger and the regular meat Whopper, Reuters reported.

“People on my team who know the Whopper inside and out, they try it and they struggle to differentiate which one is which,” Machado told The New York Times.

About Impossible Foods: Impossible Foods was founded in 2011 by Pat Brown, who became a vegan soon after college, according to The New York Times.

Brown founded the company with the goal of decreasing peoples’ reliance on animal agriculture and creating a meatless product that would satisfy consumers’ craving for beef without being made of it.

According to Impossible Foods, their burger is primarily made from water, soy protein concentrate, coconut oil, sunflower oil and other natural ingredients. The company uses heme, an iron-containing protein molecule that they say gives their burgers a taste similar to that of meat.

The Impossible Burger made for Burger King will contain the same ingredients but be reshaped to more closely match the flat shape of the Whopper patty, according to The New York Times.

Vegetarian patties aren’t new for the market. Carl’s Jr. partnered with Beyond Meat in January 2019 to provide a plant-based “Beyond Burger” on their menu, according to the company.

White Castle has also sold Impossible Burgers in sliders at all of their locations since the end of last year, according to The New York Times.