Burger King Opens 100% Meatless Restaurant
The fast-food chain has partnered with The Vegetarian Butcher to launch “Vurger King” in Spain’s capital city.
Credit: Burger King
Burger King, one of the world’s most famous fast-food brands, is signaling the move towards a plant-based future with the opening of its first fully vegetarian restaurant in Spain’s capital city, Madrid.
Burger King Spain has rebranded its outlet on the popular Paseo el Prado street into a “Vurger King”. It has been launched in collaboration with The Vegetarian Butcher, the plant-based meat brand providing all the vegan meat alternatives on the menu.
For one month, the branch will remove meat entirely from its kitchen, instead offering veggie versions of the chain’s classic products including a plant-based Whopper, vegan chicken nuggets, and a new plant-based option called the Long Vegetal. The latter is a take on one of Burger King’s best-selling items, the Long Chicken, and is made up of lettuce, bread, mayonnaise, and vegan chicken meat. The egg mayonnaise can also be replaced with a vegan version.
“We want to reach both people who base their diet on vegetable products and those who do eat meat but want to reduce their consumption,” Borja Hernández de Alba, the general director of Burger King parent company Restaurant Brands in Spain and Portugal, told Spanish outlet 20 Minutos.
Both Burger King and The Vegetarian Butcher, are working together to bring plant-based burgers to 25 different countries including Germany, South Africa, and China.
Plant-protein demand goes global
As more and more consumers look to reduce their meat intake on environmental, health, or animal welfare grounds, leading food chains like Burger King are increasingly adding plant protein to their menus.
In 2019, the fast-food company partnered with Impossible Foods to offer the plant-based Impossible Whopper. Following a successful testing period, the burger was launched at more than 7,000 Burger King locations across the U.S. and has since become available in global markets, including in Canada, Europe, and Trinidad and Tobago.
More recently, Burger King extended its partnership with Impossible Foods to launch vegan chicken nuggets. From 11 October, customers in Iowa (Des Moines), Massachusetts (Boston), and Florida (Miami) can order Impossible Nuggets available in an 8-piece order with a dipping sauce.
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