US Fast Food Giant ‘Burger King’ Goes Vegan

The popular fast food chain of the United States, Burger King has been the undisputed home of the Whopper, the chain’s signature sandwich and ‘no-nonsense’ 100 percent beef patties, has now decided to go without any meat. Yes BK is going vegan.

Now Burger King is offering Impossible Whopper, the meatless version of “America’s most favorite burger”. This sandwich is now made up of soy and potato protein with coconut oil, sunflower oil and heme, which is an iron-rich protein that gives you the texture, color and taste of actual meat.

In the past also Burger King has offered a veggie burger on the menu in its thousands of restaurants, but never marketed about it as it also offered another set of non-veggie burgers with a juicy, tender slab of meat. Now as the popular fast food joint has come all out as a vegan, it has declared officially.

The Impossible Whopper is now only available at several dozen restaurants in St Louis. But Fernando Machado, Burger King’s Chief Marketing Officer has informed that the company expects to quickly expand availability nationwide if all goes well. Machado said, “I have high expectations that it’s going to be big business, not just a niche product”.

Burger King has recently tied up with a startup Impossible Food, which is seen as the boldest move by the established brand to seek and make inroads with customers on a totally plant-based diet.

Impossible Burgers are already on the menu of the popular US chain restaurants like White Castle and Red Robin. The Silicon Valley Company was founded in the year 2011, is planning to launch its other products in supermarkets later this year.

Beyond Impossible Foods, other start-ups in the United States like Memphis Meats and Just and Mosa Meats in the Netherlands are working to develop meat from animal cells not the real animals.

Nestle has recently announced plans to roll out “cook from raw” plant-based burgers in Europe under the brand of Garden Gourmet and in the United States as the Sweet Earth label. In December last year, Unilever has declared tie up with Dutch brand De Vegetarische Slager (The Vegetarian Butcher) to position itself in the expanding sector.

A survey conducted by Nielsen for the Good Food Institute and published in September last year showed that sales of plant based foods grew 17 percent over the previous 12 months in the United States. The trend of adopting a vegan way of food habit is also growing across the world.