Burger King sells plant meat burgers in China

Plant meat burgers are available at Burger King stores in Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen and Hangzhou, the official Weibo said on December 23. These hamburgers are meat-free, with lower fat and calories, and are similar to traditional hamburgers in seasoning, but are greener and healthier.

Burger King says it uses plants as the main raw material to make “meat pies” for plant meat burgers, so it saves land resources, water and energy. And the product is packaged with FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified paper to ensure that each piece of paper comes from “sustainable, legal and logging-permissible forest resources”.

The vegetable meat burger went on sale with the image of Issing, the spokesperson for the Chinese brand of Burger King. The meatloaf is supplied by Unilever’s The Vegetarian Butcher, a Dutch manufacturer acquired by Unilever in 2018.

When Burger King launched plant meat burgers in the United States, the supplier was Impossible Foods. The supplier in Europe is The Vegetarian Butcher.

In recent years, plant meat has become a hot topic in Chinese capital, partly because of the influence of the trend in developed countries, but also because young people pay more attention to environmental protection and health. This year, major catering brands have launched new plant meat products one after another. For example, Chinese KFC launched plant meat chicken nuggets in April and plant meat hamburgers in October.

These fresh products can be seen as a sign that traditional brands are experimenting with plant meat. However, none of the above products have been sold for a long time and in an all-round way, which shows that plant meat products are not mature in the Chinese market.