The Impossible Whopper Is Coming To A Burger King Near You

Burger King is the latest company to offer an alternative meatless burger.

What Happened

The fast-food chain owned by Restaurant Brands International Inc QSR told CNN in a statement that a test of its meatless burger supplied by Impossible Foods "went exceedingly well."

The company hasn't seen customers swap traditional meat-based burgers for the new product, and said that's exactly what it wants: a new demographic. 

The meatless burger is intended to "give somebody who wants to eat a burger every day, but doesn't necessarily want to eat beef everyday, permission to come into the restaurants more frequently," Chris Finazzo, president of Burger King North America, told CNN Business.

Why It's Important

The burger is not supposed to taste like a standard vegetarian burger, but rather mimic a standard Whopper in taste and structure, according to CNN. The market for meat substitutes is expected to grow from $4.6 billion last year to $6.4 billion by 2023, according to research firm MarketsandMarkets, CNN said. 

What's Next

Burger King is hoping to expand the availability of its meatless burger to more markets "in the very near future." The company hopes to oversee a national launch at its 7,300 U.S. locations by the end of 2019, CNN reported. 

Rival meatless maker Beyond Meat estimates the plant based-meat market could eventually soar to $35 billion in the U.S. alone, CNN said. The company plans on listing its stock on a public exchange in the coming weeks.

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Photo by Edward Hands/Wikimedia.