On this day in vegan history · April 1, 2019
The Impossible Whopper Sneaks Into St. Louis
Burger King staged an April Fools' joke about a beef-free Whopper, then quietly started selling the real thing at 59 restaurants and dared customers to notice.
The facts
- Date
- April 1, 2019
- Test market
- 59 Burger King restaurants in and around St. Louis, Missouri
- Price
- $5.59, about $1 more than a regular Whopper
- Nationwide rollout
- August 2019, at Burger King's roughly 7,200 U.S. locations
On April 1, 2019, Burger King released an April Fools'-style promotional video about a plant-based Whopper, the kind of stunt built to be laughed off as a prank. It wasn't one. The Impossible Whopper, built on Impossible Foods' plant-based patty, was already on sale at 59 Burger King restaurants in and around St. Louis, Missouri, priced at $5.59, about a dollar more than the regular version. Burger King leaned on the idea that most customers could not tell it apart from the beef Whopper by taste alone. The test ran through the spring, and by August 2019 the sandwich had expanded to Burger King's roughly 7,200 U.S. locations nationwide as a limited-time offer.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
-
From the launch of our test in St. Louis, we knew that our guests really enjoyed the taste of the flame-grilled Impossible Whopper,
Chris Finazzo, President, North America, Burger King Corporation, in a company statement, August 2019
Source: TechCrunch
Why it still matters
It was one of the first times a major fast-food chain bet real national menu space on a plant-based product passing as the real thing, not a niche item on a health-food shelf. Foot traffic at the St. Louis test restaurants rose 18.5 percent while the rest of the chain's U.S. stores saw traffic dip, and the burger outlasted its one-month nationwide trial.
Sources
This history is still being written.
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