Veganism is not just a fad, it is a market trend that has more and more followers and is revolutionizing the food industry, one of the most important globally. More and more people around the world, including in Spain, are following diets based on food that is not of animal origin.
Faced with this situation, large and small companies in the sector are beginning to innovate and develop new products to try to take positions in this field.
One of the areas in which greater competition has been deployed is in vegan hamburgers, which are no longer simple trompe l’oeil made from legumes or vegetables, but have managed to develop products that almost perfectly imitate the appearance, the touch and taste of traditional hamburgers of animal origin.
The American company Beyond Meat, and , was one of the pioneers in this sector. Many other companies have followed, some independent, such as Moving Mountain, and others linked to large companies, such as Nestlé’s Garden Gourmet or Next Level Burger, available at Lidl.
Controversy with Burger King
One of the latest to arrive, and at the same time one of the most relevant, is Burger King’s vegan burger, made by The Vegetarian Butcher, a company owned by Unilever. In Spain, this product is available since last November, .
However, and despite the important advertising campaign that the company has carried out to publicize its Rebel Whopper -which is what it has called its new product-, it has been accompanied by controversy: despite being made by 100 % ‘plant based’, it is not clear if it was a vegan product. Why? Because it is cooked on the same griddle as the rest of the hamburgers, of animal origin.
The controversy has been resolved by Burger King itself at the launch of its Rebel Whopper in the United Kingdom, a pioneer country in veganism, and where they have made it clear that it is not a product for vegans or vegetarians.
“The Rebel Whopper is plant-based, however, it is cooked on the same grill as our original Whopper to offer the same unique grilled flavor,” warns the company, in a statement collected by EFE. “Due to shared kitchen equipment, it may not be suitable for vegetarians,” he adds.
“Offers meat lovers a fabulous meatless experience”
Thus, the new Burger King hamburger is aimed at “flexitarians”, details the multinational. The burger, made by The Vegetarian Butcher, a company owned by Unilever, will soon be available in some 2,400 of the chain’s restaurants in twenty European countries.
The Rebel Whopper “offers meat lovers a fabulous meatless experience,” according to Hanneke Faber, president of Unilever’s food and beverage division.
The case of the USA
Since last August, . It is a hamburger that is totally vegetarian made in collaboration with the firm Impossible Foods, known for having created a vegetable-based hamburger with the ‘heme’ protein, which even mimics the ‘bleeding’ that the meat product looks like usual beef.
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