Burger King offering meatless 'Impossible Whopper'

A beefless, 100% plant-based Whopper is coming to Burger King.

The burger chain is testing the “Impossible Whopper” — with patties from plant-based food company Impossible Foods — at all 52 locations in St. Louis starting Monday.

The new Whopper consists of the flame-grilled, plant-based patty topped the usual tomatoes, lettuce, mayonnaise, ketchup, pickles, and onions on a toasted sesame seed bun.

The chain hopes to roll out the beefless sandwich to all 7,200 locations nationwide after the test-run in St. Louis.

Red Robin — with locations in Western Pa. — also recently announced that they would be offering the Impossible Burger at all their locations starting Monday.

Vegetarian burgers are offered at Carl’s Jr. and White Castle restaurants, but adding the option to all BK restaurants would make the plant-based burger option much more widely available.

Fernando Machado, Burger King’s chief marketing officer, said to The New York Times that customers and employees had not been able to tell the difference between the meat Whopper and the plant-based one.

“People on my team who know the Whopper inside and out, they try it and they struggle to differentiate which one is which,” Mr. Machado said.

Burger King posted a video demonstrating this sentiment showing customers eating the Whoppers with the vegan patty and their reactions to it. They couldn’t believe it, according to the video.

Impossible Foods was founded in 2011 by Pat Brown, a former Stanford University professor. According to CNN Business the company is rolling out a new recipe for BK that is designed to look and taste even more like meat.