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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Burger King

I Tried Burger King’s Impossible Whopper (and so Did a Lot of Other Customers)

I’m pretty sure I haven’t been in a Burger King since they were giving away The Empire Strikes Back commemorative glasses. But I, and it seems like a lot of other people, are now stopping by the BK Lounge to try the new plant-based Impossible Whopper.

We’ve been watching Burger King roll out its Impossible Whopper nationwide with great interest to see if and how consumers would take to the heme burger. Early results from BK’s market tests showed that Burger Kings serving the Impossible Whopper saw an 18 percent increase in foot traffic over those that did not carry it.

The Impossible Whopper was certainly enough to get me in the door. I honestly didn’t even know there was a Burger King near my suburban Washington home until I Googled it to see how far I’d have to drive to try one.

Thankfully it was only fifteen minutes away, but before leaving I actually called ahead of time to make sure that a) they carried the Impossible Whopper, and b) that they were in stock — Burger King had warned the Impossible Whopper would be available “while supplies last.” They didn’t pick up the phone so I drove up with a little trepidation.

Evidently, I overthought it because the people taking my order had no reaction when I asked for the plant-based burger. A little more than six bucks (the Impossible Whopper is $5.89 plus .50 for cheese) and it was mine. This was a popular order at the time: the customers before me in line ordered three Impossible Whoppers and the customers after me ordered two more.

I asked one of the managers how well the Impossible Whopper was doing and she replied “We sell a lot of them,” complete with a head roll gesture to emphasize the point. She could just be toeing the company line, but given the number of Impossible Whoppers I saw served up, I’m inclined to believe her.

I unwrapped my Whopper and disassembled it to take some pictures. Seeing the patty “naked,” I was surprised at how fake the Impossible patty looked. It was like a large coin with perfect edges. Like an MS Paint drawing of a burger patty.

I reassembled the Whopper and took my first highly-anticipated bite. It was… fine. I mean, it was good, but it’s missing some of the deep flavor complexity and texture of ground beef, and the Impossible patty was a little more dry. It definitely wouldn’t fool a meat eater. I much prefer the Impossible burger served at my local waterfront restaurant. Perhaps Burger King needs more training in the preparation of the patty, so it tastes less mass market.

My thoughts echoed Spoon reader Tom G‘s, who sent us his Impossible Whopper review awhile back. And a favorite food podcaster of mine, Dan Pashman of The Sporkful posted pretty much the same thoughts on Instagram:

I asked the customer next to me, an older gentleman, if he liked his. He said he did, but not in a particularly enthusiastic way. When I asked why he ordered it, he said it was for environmental reasons.

And that’s where I net out. I don’t think I’ll drive out of my way for an Impossible Whopper, but if I find myself in a Burger King, I’d get one again. Not because of the taste, but because I feel better about eating a burger that is better for the planet.

Anecdotally speaking, the Impossible Whopper seems to be drawing lapsed customers back into Burger King, so I’m sure the fast-food giant will see a spike in initial sales with the nationwide introduction of the Impossible Whopper. The question that remains now is how many people will come back for another.

Interested in more reviews and news about the Impossible Burger and other alternative protein stories? Subscribe to our Future Food newsletter!

Subway Partners With Beyond Meat for Plant-Based Meatball Sub

Subway joined the growing number of QSRs offering plant-based meat options this week, announcing a new partnership with Beyond Meat.

The two companies will start testing the Beyond Meatball Marinara sandwich, a plant-based take on one of Subway’s classics, in September, according to a press release. The sandwich will be available in 685 Subway restaurants for a limited time in the U.S. and Canada. Subway didn’t specify how limited that time would be or what happens afterwards. Presumably, the Beyond Meatball Marinara will be available as long as supplies last, and its expansion will depend on how popular the sandwich proves during this testing phase.

Subway is the latest fast-food outlet to start offering a plant-based option on its menu. At the end of last month, Beyond added a partnership with Dunkin’ to sell plant-based breakfast sandwiches in NYC. Beyond also has menu items at chains like Del Taco and Carl’s Jr., as well as a strong retail presence in grocery stores. The company even launched a new ground-beef-like product at Whole Foods earlier this summer.

Impossible, meanwhile, is set to do a nationwide rollout of its Impossible Whopper at Burger King this week. The company, who is Beyond’s chief rival, already works with White Castle as well as some non-burger chains like Qdoba and Little Caesar’s. Impossible is also (finally) heading to retail stores this September.

Given the surging popularity of both Impossible and Beyond, we can expect the list of QSRs testing out plant-based options like these to keep growing throughout the rest of the year.

Burger King Launching Impossible Whopper Nationwide Aug. 8 (While Supplies Last)

Burger King is making its plant-based Impossible Whopper available at all its 7,000-plus locations starting August 8.

Burger King’s accelerated national rollout of the Impossible Whopper is pretty impressive, given that the burger only just debuted as a test in April. The Impossible Whopper will cost $5.59 (a dollar more than a regular Whopper), and if you are dead set on trying one, you’ll want to act quickly. As CNN Business writes, Burger King has not made the Impossible Whopper a permanent part of its menu and it will only be available while supplies last.

And supply has been an issue for Impossible, which experienced a four-month long supply shortage that only ended a couple of weeks ago. But there will be new stresses on Impossible’s supply chain, as the company just yesterday announced that it will be available at retail outlets starting in September.

True, we don’t know exactly what Impossible’s availability at retail will look like. The company didn’t provide any specifics on what product was coming to market (patties or ground “beef”), or numbers around size or location of its first foray into supermarkets. So the retail rollout could be a slow drip that doesn’t impact restaurant availability all that much.

If early results are any indication, BK’s Impossible rollout could be a whopper in and of itself. Early market research showed that Burger Kings that offered the Impossible Whopper saw an 18 percent increase in foot traffic over those that did not. Burger King’s President for the Americas told CNN Business that the Impossible Whopper is drawing in new customers, something we’ve heard of first hand from at least one Spoon reader who hadn’t been in a Burger King in forever and made a trip specifically to try one out (he liked it!).

Sales of plant-based meat are booming, as so-called flexitarians are drawn to a product that tastes and feels like meat, but doesn’t have all of the ethical and environmental considerations associated with eating animals. Impossible rival Beyond Meat had its Q2 earnings call earlier this week, and reported sales of $67 million for that quarter and increased its revenue outlook for the year to $240 million.

As part of its nationwide launch of the Impossible Whopper, from Aug. 8 – Sept. 1, Burger King is running a “taste test” promotion with DoorDash, which lets you buy both a traditional Whopper and an Impossible one for $7.

Will you be taking a plant-based bite?

What Sweden’s Quirky Food Tech Scene Could Mean for the Rest of the World

From parental leave policies to sustainability initiatives, Sweden is typically considered one of the most forward-thinking nations on earth.So it’s no surprise the country consistently pops up in food tech conversations, often for unusual projects that seem quirky at first glance but can actually tell us a lot about how tech is changing the way we eat.

Like making customers do what’s essentially a blind taste-test to see if they can tell the difference between a plant-based burger and the real deal. The famed Impossible Burger isn’t available in Europe right now, but that didn’t stop Burger King from using Vivera’s plant-based patty to create a version of its Whopper — and betting customers can’t discern the difference between it and a regular meat-based one.

To drive that point home, BK in Sweden launched the “50/50 menu” at the beginning of July where customers order BK’s signature burger and have a 50/50 chance of getting a meat version or the plant-based version. The only way to tell which is which is to scan a QR code on the wrapper.

It’s a gimmick, to be sure, but as my colleague Catherine Lamb pointed out, it’s also a way to get better data on plant-based offerings: “It will get a record of every consumer’s reaction to the sandwiches, and be able to quantify how often people are actually duped by the vegetarian alternatives.”

More data like this could give Burger King a realistic picture of how much customers actually want plant-based fast food — a useful lesson for businesses in any part of the world.

Or you could just hand your customers a picnic blanket. That’s what McDonald’s in Sweden did earlier this summer to promote its initiatives around delivering to public spaces via geofencing technologies. Customers scan a QR code on the picnic blanket to shoot their geographic information to a third-party delivery service, who will deliver a McDonald’s meal from the chain’s nearest location.

The idea isn’t specific to Sweden: companies like Domino’s and 7-Eleven also deliver to public locations rather than a numbered addresses. But there’s something more attention-grabbing about scanning a picnic blanket than simply logging into an app. PR stunt though it may be, it suggests a whole new avenue of possibilities when it comes to using everyday objects and settings in life to ramp up the food delivery business.

On a more ambitious level, come September 3, restaurant-goers in Stockholm will be able to experience what science, technology, academic research, design, and cooking look like when bundled together to form a single sustainable restaurant.

Restauranglabbet (“the restaurant lab”) will test numerous sustainability measures under one roof, from curbing food waste to cooking with more local, sustainable ingredients to measuring carbon footprint and using only eco-friendly materials in furniture design and production.

We won’t know how successful the project is until Restauranglabbet’s doors open on September 3, but no doubt there will be pieces of restaurant innovation coming out of the lab the whole world should take note of.

Elsewhere, a company in Stockholm called Diaz & Swahn is experimenting inside and outside the restaurant with how sound can affect the way food tastes to people. And a company called Local Food Node makes a digital platform that allows users to connect with local food producers by creating nodes that function as delivery and pickup spots for the food.

Will we be seeing QR-enabled picnic loot and sound-centric restaurants in the States anytime soon? Probably in part, particularly when it comes to building a more sustainable restaurant and finding new avenues for food delivery. In any case, keep your eye on Sweden one to watch for finding more innovative, scalable ways to integrate tech meaningfully into our food lives.

Is That Whopper Made of Meat or Plants? Burger King in Sweden Wants You to Guess

Within the past few years, companies making plant-based meat have shifted from trying to make passable alternatives to making products so good, consumers can’t tell they’re not from an animal.

Burger King in Sweden is now putting their product to that very test. The chain recently launched a “50/50 menu” to promote sales of its new plant-based sandwiches: the Rebel Whopper and the Rebel Chicken King. According to advertising agency lbbonline, customers ordering off the menu have a 50 percent chance of getting the vegetarian sandwich, and a 50 percent chance of getting a meat one.

The only way they can tell for sure which one they got (unless their taste buds reveal the truth) is to scan a code on the sandwich’s packaging with the Burger King app. They have to input their guess before the app reveals whether they’re eating meat or plants.

The Rebel Whopper and Rebel Chicken King hit Burger Kings throughout Sweden last month after a successful pilot in May. They were originally called the Unbelievable Whopper and Unbelievable Chicken King but abrupted changed to Rebel (perhaps due to pushback from similarly-named Impossible Foods?). The chain has been tight-lipped about where they’re sourcing their new vegetarian options. Over email, BK Sweden’s General Manager Iwo Zakowski would only reveal that the producer of the plant-based chicken and burger patty were based in Europe. So, not Impossible or Beyond. It could be using the Incredible Burger from Switzerland-based Nestlé, though that seems unlikely since it’s already sold in McDonald’s in Israel and Germany.

Sadly I haven’t had the chance to taste Burger King’s new Rebel sandwiches, so I can’t speak to how will they mimic the real thing. If they’re a good substitute, this marketing gimmick could be a smart way to entice hesitant customers to try plant-based options. But if they’re not very realistic, this could spark some backlash for BK, especially on social media.

Regardless, this is an obvious way for Burger King to gather valuable data on its new plant-based offerings. It will get a record of every consumer’s reaction to the sandwiches, and be able to quantify how often people are actually duped by the vegetarian alternatives. I’m not sure if the app offers a section for feedback, but if it does that could help BK optimize the sandwich to make it even more meat-like.

Burger King is betting on meat alternatives around the globe. In the U.S. they’re currently rolling out the Impossible Whopper made with the popular “bleeding” plant-based patty. Just today, Burger Kings in the U.K. began serving halloumi (a firm cheese) burgers after a successful trial run in Sweden. The new 50/50 menu shows that BK is confident that plant-based meat is good enough to attract not only vegetarians but carnivores — so confident they’re willing to put their menu where their mouth is.

An Impossible Whopper Review from a Spoon Reader

Living in the Pacific Northwest has a lot to offer: Trees, mountains, a Starbucks on just about every corner. But one thing we don’t have right now is the Impossible Whopper from Burger King. It’s only available in a few areas in the country, and was recently launched in the Bay Area as it starts to roll out nationwide.

It’s hard to justify a 13 hour road trip just to try BK’s plant-based burger, which is why we were lucky enough to have friend of The Spoon, and Bay Area resident, Tom G submit his review for us. His order of an Impossible Whopper, small fries and a small Coke cost him $11.85, after tax. And what did he think?

“It was good. Probably 85% of the way there. I should have ordered with cheese,” Tom texted me, “I think with cheese and had no one told me it was fake I probably wouldn’t notice.” He went on “It did have a slightly artificial taste but since the Whoppers do already that’s ironically in their favor.”

In addition to the positive review, the good news for Burger King is that Tom doesn’t typically ever go to one of its restaurants and went specifically to try the Impossible burger. Tom’s not the only new customer Burger King has attracted with the new Whopper:

This type of anecdotal evidence helps reinforce that the Impossible Whopper could bring an entirely new, or at least long-dormant, set of customers back to BK. In St. Louis, Burger King locations that offered the Impossible Whopper outperformed the chain’s national foot traffic average by 18.5 percent. The question now is whether these Impossible-curious customers are one-offs, or if they will come back for more.

In Tom G’s case, he said he’d go back to BK for another plant-based Whopper, though there are enough other restaurants serving the Impossible burger that he wouldn’t go out of his way for it. He prefers The Melt’s Impossible burger, even though it’s more expensive.

Have you tried the Impossible Whopper? What did you think? Did it bring you back to Burger King, and will you go back for more? Drop us a line and let us know!

Dunkin’ Is Testing Delivery, Geofencing in New York City

Dunkin’ announced this morning it is now available for delivery in all five boroughs of New York City.

Dunkin’ is already in select cities in the U.S. through partnerships with Grubhub as well as DoorDash. For the NYC test market, Dunkin’ will be available exclusively through Grubhub and Seamless (Grubhub’s NYC-specific brand).

Grubhub isn’t a surprising choice here. In major urban areas — like NYC, LA, Philadephia, Boston, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. — the company is still the leader of third-party delivery when it comes to market share.

For the Dunkin’-NYC partnership, Grubhub will integrate orders directly into each store location’s POS system, a feature that’s getting more and more important with each new delivery partnership that surfaces.

But Grubhub didn’t stop there in terms of using technology to enhance the Dunkin’ deal. It also drew a geofence around each Dunkin’ location in NYC (there are over 400) in order to monitor traffic in surrounding areas and where couriers are in relation to the store making their order.

Seth Priebatsch, the head of enterprise at Grubhub, referred to this as “our ‘just in time delivery flow’” when he spoke to NRN this morning. Thanks to the technology, Dunkin’ will start a delivery order based on how far away the courier is and how large the order is. For bigger orders, Dunkin’ starts making an them when the courier is 10 minutes away; for smaller orders, the store will probably need just a few minutes to time an order with a courier’s arrival.

This geofencing method is something we’ll see more of as restaurant chains look to improve both timeliness and quality of their delivery orders. And Dunkin’ isn’t the first — McDonald’s already uses it, and Burger King pulled a well-publicized geofencing stunt late last year that wound up highlighting the value of the technology when it comes to attracting and retaining customers.

Packaging is the other aspect of the Dunkin’-Grubhub deal that bears noting. Grubhub said all couriers are equipped with insulated bags with which to deliver drinks, whether hot or cold. But it seems time and temperature are still the two major hurdles when it comes to coffee delivery, even for a chain as large as Dunkin’ (or, for that matter, Starbucks and Uber Eats). Even Priebatsch noted that Dunkin’ is currently trying to walk the line between serving a large delivery radius without making travelers go so far that the quality of the product gets diminished in the process.

While there was no news of Grubhub using anything beyond the standard insulated bag, packaging seems an areas ripe for disruption in food delivery, especially as as more and more goods like hot coffee and frozen smoothies go mobile.

Burger King’s Impossible Whopper Arrives in the San Francisco Bay Area Today

Burger King’s Impossible Whopper will arrive at more than 100 of its locations across the San Francisco Bay Area today, according to various reports. This is the first West Coast arrival of BK’s hip, meatless burger, and part of the fast food chain’s national expansion of the Impossible Whopper after initial testing in St. Louis and roll out to Miami, Columbus, GA, and Montgomery, AL.

The Impossible patties won’t have far to travel: Impossible is headquartered in the Bay Area’s Redwood City, and has a production facility in Oakland, CA. That production facility has been literally working overtime as of late as Impossible has struggled to keep up with the skyrocketing demand for plant-based burger.

Though there is a perception among smaller restaurants that large operations like Burger King and Red Robin have gobbled up all the Impossible supply, an Impossible spokesperson told us recently that that was not the case.

Impossible’s popularity is part of a global boom in plant-based meat, a category that is worth more than $684 million, with plenty of headroom to grow. Impossible says sales of its product have jumped 50 percent since it debuted its new formula this past January, and rival Beyond Meat is still riding high after one of the hottest IPOs of the decade.

For its part, with the arrival of the Impossible Whopper, the Bay Area’s hottest restaurant this week will probably be Burger King.

Want to stay on top of plant-based and alternative protein news? Subscribe to our Future Food newsletter. 

Down Under, Australia’s Burger King is Developing a Vegan Whopper to Fool Carnivores

Hungry Jack’s, the Australian franchise of Burger King, is stepping into the meaty plant-based burger game with a whopper investment of… a million bucks?

The Australian Financial Review reported today that the founder Hungry Jack’s, Jack Cowin, has invested $1 million to develop a vegan burger made from legumes that looks, tastes, and even bleeds like real meat. It will be sold in their new vegan Whopper, which Hungry Jack’s will sell at all 400 locations across Australia by this summer. The forthcoming burger is being developed by v2food, a company founded by Cowin, in tandem with Australia’s national science agency, with the goal of developing better tasting meat alternatives.

That’s a noble mission, but I’m not sure how realistic it is with only $1 million behind it. For context, Impossible Foods has raised over $687 million and Beyond Foods had amassed $122 million before its IPO last month. Put next to those figures, $1 million looks like a drop in the bucket. There’s probably some knowledge that v2food can glean from forerunners like Beyond and Impossible, but R&D for food products is extremely expensive.

v2food is also working on a very tight timeline. Hungry Jack’s has announced it will have the plant-based Whopper out by sometime mid-year, which basically gives them three months tops to develop a new burger and start producing it at scale. The fast-food chain already can leverage its own established production facilities, but if they need any new equipment to make the plant-based burger, scaling could actually present a challenge.

It would have been easier for the company to just roll out a new Whopper made with “beef” from Beyond Meat or Impossible Foods, as Burger King is doing in the U.S. Impossible isn’t in Australia yet (possibly due to tighter restrictions on genetically modified food), though Beyond is. Maybe Hungry Jack’s is hoping it will be cheaper — at least in the long run — to develop their own patty. Though by taking that path, they won’t be able to leverage Beyond or Impossible’s brand recognition as a tool to entice new customers.

Concerns aside, Hungry Jack’s is smart to cash in on the growing demand for plant-based burgers. They just might need to invest a lot more cash in order to make it happen.

Update: Burger King to Sell New Plant-Based Burgers in Sweden

Today the Washington Post announced that Burger King will start selling a new plant-based burger in Sweden starting tomorrow (Wednesday).

The piece described the new menu offering “a version of the Impossible Whopper”, which is made with the popular plant-based “bleeding” meat from Redwood City, Calif.-based startup Impossible Foods. In the U.S. Burger King began selling the popular plant-based patties in early April in St. Louis, then quickly announced it would make them available to all Burger Kings nationwide. Last week it began that expansion, with Columbus, GA, Montgomery, AL, and Miami, FL.

However, there’s a reason that Burger King’s new plant-based burger is only a version of the Impossible Whopper: heme. Yes, the same buzzed-about ingredient that makes Impossible’s burgers taste and bleed like meat is what’s standing in the way of into Europe.

Impossible’s heme is produced with genetically modified yeast. While the heme itself isn’t a genetically modified organism (GMO) per se, it’s still made through genetic modification — which means it would have to be approved for sale by the European Food Safety Authority. Even though the FDA has decreed that heme is generally recognized as safe, there’s no guarantee that European authorities would follow suit.

With Impossible out of the running, it’s not clear what the new plant-based Whopper in Sweden is made of. It might be a revamp of a classic bean burger, which the fast-food chain launched earlier this month in its Malta locations, or a garden patty, like the Morningside veggie burgers available in U.S. BK locations.

More likely it’ll be closer to Nestlé’s Incredible Burger — after all, the meat-like vegan burger, which is similar in looks to Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, is now on the menus of McDonald’s in Germany.

Instead of Europe, I’m guessing that Impossible Whopper’s global expansion will start in Asia. Impossible’s plant-based patties are already available in Hong Kong, Macau, and, as of a few months ago, Singapore. They’re not in Asian locations of Burger King yet, but clearly genetic modification isn’t as much of an issue there as it is in Europe.

Impossible Foods, however, is adamant that their choice to expand into Asia before other international regions has nothing to do with the genetic engineering issue. Rather, it’s a strategic choice in order to pack the biggest punch against the meat industry. “Asia accounts for more than 40% of the world’s total meat consumption,” a representative told us over email. Maybe an Impossible Whopper launch in Asia would help reduce that number.

If you want to keep tabs on the latest Impossible Foods news + in-depth analysis, subscribe to Future Food! It’s a weekly newsletter covering alternative protein news — from “bleeding” plant-based burgers to insects to bioreactors. Subscribe here.

[Note: A previous version of this piece incorrectly assumed that the new plant-based burger in Sweden was indeed made with the Impossible burger.]

Burger King Wheels Whoppers to LA Drivers Stuck in Traffic, Begins Impossible Roll Out

Burger King announced this week that it is rolling out two new Whoppers to two very different audiences, as the fast food chain shows how it’s adapting to modern times in a fun, playful and dare we say, smart way.

First up, Burger King announced it will deliver Whoppers to LA motorists stuck in traffic. The appropriately titled Traffic Jam Whopper project invites drivers stuck in high-density traffic to order burgers directly from their cars. Burger King uses real-time data to pinpoint the most heavily congested areas of the city at any given time (which, in LA is pretty much everywhere between the hours of 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.), then offers food to customers stuck in that jam via push notifications and Waze banner ads.

As a driver inches their way through the traffic, they’ll pass through different “delivery zones,” which are areas within a 1.9-mile radius from the nearest Burger King, calculated using traffic and customer data so that Burger King knows which location to use for each customer. Upon entering one of these delivery zones, they can place an order through the BK app. (For safety and legal reasons, orders have to be placed via voice command.) When the food is ready, a Burger King driver hops on a motorcycle and lane splits their way to the car’s exact location to drop the food. Waze banners and digital billboards posted along the delivery zones display information about an order’s progress.

Right now, the Traffic Jam Whopper project only offers the regular Whopper combo meal, which comes with fries and a bottled soda or water.

Burger King ran a hugely successful pilot of the ongoing campaign, which it’s conducting with ad agency We Believers, in Mexico City recently. After Los Angeles, Shanghai and São Paulo are next.

LA, who’s ranked fifth in terms of worst U.S. traffic at peak rush hour times, is an ideal setting for a campaign like this. Unlike in NYC or Boston where you have to weave around pedestrian traffic through a network of narrow streets, in LA everyone’s on the freeway after work.

If it all sounds good to be true, check out a video of the Traffic Jam Whopper project in action in Mexico City:

Burger King | "Traffic Jam Whopper"

If you’re like us, you might be wondering, Can I get the new Impossible Whopper delivered to my car? Sadly for hungry flexitarians, Los Angeles is not one of the cities where they can get an Impossible Whopper while stuck on the 405. That said, Burger King did announce yesterday it had started its national expansion of the much buzzed-about plant-based burger into three new cities: Miami, Columbus, GA, and Montgomery, AL. These new burghs join St. Louis, MO, which was the first city to get the Impossible Whopper.

Burger King is hitting the road in a different manner, visiting these three new cities in the “Impossible Whopper Tour Bus,” which is intended amp up excitement around the plant-based patty’s expansion with games, music, and free swag. Hopefully it doesn’t get stuck in too much traffic on the way.

A Real Whopper! Burger King to Roll Out Impossible Burgers Nationwide

Well, that was quick. Less than a month after testing out the Impossible Whopper in St. Louis, Burger King said today that it will expand the availability of Impossible’s plant-based burger to all of its 7,300 locations by the end of this year.

The BK Lounge becomes the latest in an already impressive list of 5,000 restaurants to go in on Impossible. Other chains using Impossible’s heme-based burger “meat” include Qdoba, Red Robin, and White Castle. For all of these chains, adding a plant-based burger that looks, tastes, feels and even “bleeds” like the real thing opens up new customers bases in the growing market of vegetarians and flexitarians.

For those following the fake meat industry, the Burger King/Impossible announcement comes right before plant-based burger rival, Beyond Meat, is set to go public this week. The two companies have been in a bit of a tit-for-tat news battle throughout this month. While Impossible grabbed headlines for the BK test and now rollout, Del Taco announced it would serve Beyond Meat at all its locations nationwide and Beyond expanded overseas into Belgium and the Netherlands.

Will the BK deal help make Impossible the “king” of plant-based burgers? From the looks of it, we have a Game of Thrones-level battle brewing ahead as the competition between the two fake bleeding burger giants will only intensify over the course of this year. Both companies debuted new burger recipes this year. As noted earlier, Beyond is going public this week, which could raise $184 million for the company to expand its restaurant initiatives more aggressively. But Impossible is also taking the fight to the grocery aisle this year, where Beyond has focused much of its efforts and is well established.

If you’re into Impossible and Beyond burgers, you should definitely subscribe to our new Future Food newsletter, which covers and breaks down all the news in the emerging plant-based food world.