Airport delays over the holidays might cause misery and stress, but at least you'll be able to get a free veggie burger out of the experience.
The Restaurant Brands International chain launches its "Delay Your Way" promotion Wednesday, offering travelers with a delayed flight a free Impossible Whopper, which features a meatless patty from Impossible Foods. Travelers at any U.S. airport through Dec. 30 can enter their delayed flight information into Burger King's app and receive a coupon for the free burger, which the chain describes as "just like the original Whopper sandwich but with a patty made from plants."
Plant-based burgers have surged in popularity as consumers seek to cut meat from their diets for their own health or for environmental reasons. Impossible Foods' product is known to "bleed" like a real burger patty.
Impossible's rival Beyond Meat went public earlier this year, but Impossible Foods CEO Pat Brown said in August it wasn't the right time for the company to go public, telling CNBC that "From a financial standpoint, there is no urgency to go public."
Burger King is notorious for its viral marketing stunts, like a television ad that prompted Google voice devices to pull up Wikipedia and start listing the ingredients of a Whopper, or the "Whopper Detour" campaign, which offered 1 cent Whopper burgers to consumers who were geographically near a McDonald's restaurant.
It's been trying to get consumers to try out its meatless products, too. In Sweden, the restaurant launched a "50/50 menu," which meant consumers who choose to order from the menu would be randomly served a plant-based or regular meat patty. Consumers had to guess which one they had been served, then could scan their box to see if they were correct.
