Bad news for vegetarians hoping to relive meat-eating memories: Burger King’s new plant-based, ‘bleeding’ Impossible Whopper is cooked alongside beef and chicken.
This month the fast food chain announced the US-wide launch of the burger following a trial in the St Louis area in April. Though the burger was not labelled ‘vegetarian’, it was advertised as ‘0% beef’ and ‘made from plants’. The patty’s main ingredients are soy and potato proteins.
However, the fine print on Burger King’s website states the Whopper is flame-grilled in the same broiler used for beef and chicken, meaning it will almost certainly come into contact with meat.
One former employee said that the in-restaurant production line means that ‘veggie burgers get soaked in meat juices’.
Vegetarian Twitter users are not happy.
‘Why would you serve plant-based burgers cooked with meat, though?,’ asked one user.
Another user called the fiasco a ‘misleading, big fail’.
This isn’t the first time Burger King has gotten beef from vegetarians. Earlier this month, the restaurant was criticised because its new halloumi burger is cooked in the same fryer as chicken and fish. – even though Burger King promotes the burger as a ‘meat-free’ option.
At the time, a spokesperson told the Metro.co.uk: ‘At this moment in time we’re not operationally able to facilitate separate fryers and oil filtration systems in all of our restaurants. However this is a focus for us and our team are actively looking into solutions for how we can change this in the future.’
They also emphasised that – like the Impossible Whopper – the halloumi burger is not described as ‘vegetarian’, but as ‘meat-free’.
For vegetarians who are strict about meat contamination then, this rules almost all the Burger King options out – anything fried (like onion rings and fries) is likely to have come into contact with meat. The veggie burger however, which is not fried, is fully vegetarian.
We asked Burger King for comment on the plant-based Whopper, but have not heard from them as of yet. We’ll update this article if we do.
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