At Burger King, Your Meat-Free Burger Might Come With a Coating of Real Meat Juice

Your meat free burger might come with a coating of real meat juice

Imagine that you’re a food chain, and you’ve proudly added a meat-free burger like the Impossible to your menu. It’s probably obvious that you shouldn’t cook it on a grill covered with beef run-off, right? Not if you’re Burger King: that chain and others like A&W America are reportedly cooking fake meat burgers on the same grills as the meat ones. It’s true that plenty Impossible fans aren’t vegetarians and won’t to be fazed by the possibility of consuming some meat. According to Burger King, 90 percent of customers eating these burgers aren’t vegetarian or vegan, and that those who object have the option of getting their burger done in the oven. But what about the 10% of customers who ARE vegetarian or vegan and presume that what’s being advertised as a meatless burger is indeed meatless?

Some brands , like Tim Hortons and Dunkin’, are doing their part to keep fake meat totally separate. White Castle uses a different grill for meatless burgers, and Carl’s Jr. says it’s doing its best to keep them separate from meat, gaining them an A for effort.

Regardless of how people individually care about their Impossible burgers marinating in beef juice, this could potentially be a bigger problem for Burger King. After all, so many chains are selling fake meat burgers now that vegetarians and vegans who can’t trust Burger King will surely be happy to take their business elsewhere.

And in other news...

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• Queer Eye guacamole chef Antoni Porowski and grooming expert Jonathan Van Ness are not dating, which means: they’re on the market, boys! [People]
• After departing San Francisco restaurant Tosca Cafe, chef April Bloomfield has returned back to New York, home of her only remaining restaurant, the Breslin. [ENY]
• You might think there would be less interest in lab-made fake dairy since there are so many milk alternatives out there (soy, oat, etc.), yet there are labs out there trying to make it happen. [NYT]
• When Trader Joe’s discontinues grocery items, some people’s hearts break: it’s called “grocery ghosting”. [Mel]
• An alcohol thief in the UK looked suspiciously like Friends star David Schwimmer. [CNN]
• Because Hollywood believes that every holiday deserves its own movie, a film centered around the Feast of Seven Fishes — an Italian Christmas tradition — is in the works. [Deadline]

• All Am Intel Coverage [E]