After a successful trial run, Burger King announced Monday that it plans to release its Impossible Whopper nationwide. By the end of the year, the plant-based burger will be available in all of Burger King's approximately 7,300 locations.
“Our Impossible Whopper test in St. Louis went exceedingly well and as a result we plan to extend testing into additional markets in the very near future,” a spokesman for Burger King's parent company, Restaurant Brands Inc., said in a statement.
Burger King made waves on April 1 when it became the largest fast-food company thus far to begin selling the vegan burger.
The appeal of the Impossible Whopper for Burger King’s meat-eating clientele is the patty's near identical taste and texture to actual meat.
Burger King’s Impossible Whopper uses the Impossible Burger 2.0, which was released in 2019 and which Impossible Foods Inc. claims tastes even more identical to beef than the original. In a taste test, Burger King clientele couldn’t tell the difference between the meat-based and plant-based Whoppers.
Another added appeal for the burger is the comparably low environmental footprint of plant-based foods over the beef industry. If Americans were to replace 50 percent of their beef with plant-based Impossible Foods, they could spare the earth 35 million metric tons of carbon, according to the Impossible Foods 2018 Sustainability Report.
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Impossible Foods Inc. CEO, Pat Brown hopes that by 2035, plant-based foods will have completely replaced the need for animal meat.
“It seems like the world is coming around,” said Brown. “They are seeing that plant-based meats can be delicious and recognizing this in the face of catastrophic effects of animal farming.”
America’s largest fast-food chain, McDonald's, has yet to put a plant-based burger on its menu. However, other fast-food restaurants such as White Castle and Red Robin already have an Impossible Burger on their menu.
