A few of Burger King’s menu items are accidentally vegan — but now, one of the chain restaurant’s star offerings will have an explicitly vegan alternative. As Burger King announced on Monday, April 1 (and no, it’s not an April Fools’ Day joke), select locations of the fast food chain now offer the classic Whopper burger with the plant-based Impossible Burger patty.
According to press materials sent to Green Matters, 59 Burger King locations in the St. Louis area are testing the Impossible Whopper on their menus. A Burger King spokesperson tells Green Matters via email that if the St. Louis market test goes well, there is potential that Burger King will expand it to more restaurants across the U.S.
The new burger will include all the same fixings as the traditional Whopper — tomatoes, lettuce, mayonnaise, ketchup, pickles, onions, and a sesame seed bun — but with an Impossible patty instead of beef. Burger King’s nutrition page notes that its mayonnaise is made with eggs, meaning the Impossible Whopper will not be entirely vegan. But luckily customers can order the Impossible Whopper with any customizations, including no mayo, which will make their order animal-free, the Burger King spokesperson tells Green Matters. Who knows, maybe in the future Burger King will offer a vegan mayo.
So far, early reviews are pretty positive. “People on my team who know the Whopper inside and out, they try [the Impossible Whopper] and they struggle to differentiate which one is which,” Burger King CMO Fernando Machado told the New York Times.
Burger King’s Whoppers Go Impossible With the Popular Plant-Based Patty [Green Matters]