Burger King Introduces the Impossible Whopper, Fools Customers Into Going Meatless, Global : Today Indya

Burger King Introduces the Impossible Whopper, Fools Customers Into Going Meatless

Global

news18

On April Fool's Day, the chain first served the meatless burgers to patrons at its St. Louis (Missouri) locations without telling their customers that the burgers contatined no beef. Impossibly, they bought it

Burger King Introduces the Impossible Whopper, Fools Customers Into Going Meatless

Talk about taking a leaf out of India's book. Literally. On April Fool's Day, fast food behemoth Burger King made an announcement which it promised was no joke. The American fast food chain, iconic for its grilled beef Whopper burgers (India has a chicken version, of course), is planning to take the meat out of its sandwiches.

The burger chain announced on Monday that it is testing out Impossible Whoppers, by substituting the beef patties with the plant-based patties made world-famous by Impossible Foods; Impossible Foods had earlier made waves around the culinary world when it introduced diners to its vegetarian faux-meat burgers which look, smell, and taste like the real thing, without all the associated farmyard slaughter; it even 'bleeds' like a perfect medium-rare beef patty.

However, just to get into the spirit of things, since it was April 1, the chain first served the meatless burgers to patrons at its St. Louis (Missouri) locations without telling their customers that the burgers contatined no beef. Impossibly, they bought it, as can be seen this Reuters clip below:

‘Little did they know, their Whopper patty was actually made from plants’: Burger King and Silicon Valley startup roll out the Impossible Whopper @leejane71 reports: https://t.co/21k1rd9AdO via @ReutersTV pic.twitter.com/ywLhoU87Jp
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) April 1, 2019

After testing the waters in 59 locations in and around St. Louis, Missouri, if all goes well, Burger King will roll out the Impossible Whopper nationally.

With the Impossible Whopper, Burger King hopes to "give somebody who wants to eat a burger every day, but doesn't necessarily want to eat beef everyday, permission to come into the restaurants more frequently," Chris Finazzo, president of Burger King North America, told CNN Business.

Perhaps more vitally, it offers vegan and vegetarian options to a steadily health-conscious clientele who usually have to forgo the American classic.

Impossible Foods, which is based in Redwood City, California, launched its first faux-meat patty over two years ago, using a genetically modified yeast, which helps make the patties 'bleed' and taste like real meat.

That's not to say that Burger King is pioneering the concept. Another company specialising in faux-meat is the Los Angeles-based Beyond Meat, which announced in the begining of this year that it was rolling out its own version plant-based burger at fast-food chain Carl’s Jr. Among Beyond Meat's investors are actor and long-time conservationist Leonardo DiCaprio, Bill Gates, and former General Electric CEO Jack Welch.

Article Original Source : https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/burger-king-introduces-the-impossible-whop...

#burger king impossible

#whopper fools customers

#going meatless

Oyo books $200 million funding from Airbnb

Global

livemint

• The Oyo-Airbnb deal will immediately allow Oyo’s 10,000 villas and homes in India, Dubai and other markets to be listed on Airbnb

• The Airbnb-Oyo deal is seen as bolstering the US company's hotel-booking business ahead of a planned IPO

Bengaluru: Airbnb Inc., the world’s largest home-sharing platform, on Monday said it has invested an undisclosed amount in India’s budget hotel startup, Oyo (Oravel Stays Pvt. Ltd), as the US company seeks to bolster its hotel-booking business ahead of a planned IPO. Two people familiar with the matter said Airbnb has invested between $150 million and $200 million in Oyo as part of the Indian startup’s Series E funding round.

The Oyo-Airbnb deal will immediately allow Oyo’s 10,000 villas and homes in India, Dubai and other markets to be listed on the Airbnb platform, expanding Oyo’s international reach and strengthening Airbnb’s presence in Asia, one of the two people cited above said, on condition of anonymity.

“Both will explore opportunities to collaborate on a range of projects," said the person cited above. “The key one is going to be making Oyo accommodation available on the Airbnb platform."

The home-renting company is adding hotels to its listings inventory as part of a strategy to attract travellers who find renting a home from a stranger risky.

The investment also underscores a growing trend of companies in the travel and hospitality segment exploring ways to leverage each other’s strengths.

On 8 March, Airbnb bought HotelTonight, an app for finding hotel rooms at a discount, ahead of its proposed initial public offering (IPO). In 2018, online travel operator Cleartrip acquired Saudi Arabia’s leading travel aggregator Flyin.

“A lot of these markets have evolved independent of each other and 1-2 players have built dominance in a local market or single country market or a local product market," said Aditya Agarwal, head of corporate strategy at Cleartrip. “And when you’re trying to enter these markets, it would be inefficient to compete with each other rather than collaborate with each other."

Analysts say that Airbnb is increasingly becoming a broad-based travel company rather than just a home rental platform. This deal further reinforces that perception which would be good for the company ahead of its public offering.

Since it entered the country almost three years ago, India has become an important market for Airbnb. While the home-rental platform has about 47,000 properties listed in India, globally Airbnb has almost 6 million listings across 81,000 cities in 191 countries.

“Emerging markets like India and China are some of Airbnb’s fastest-growing, with our growth increasingly powered by tourism to and from these markets," said Greg Greeley, president of homes at Airbnb.

Oyo has also been aggressively expanding its global footprint over the past one year by entering markets such as China, the US, United Arab Emirates and the Philippines, among others.

“Airbnb’s strong global footprints and access to local communities will open up new opportunities for OYO Hotels & Homes," said Maninder Gulati, global chief strategy officer at OYO Hotels & Homes.

In India, Oyo is present in more than 259 cities, with more than 8,700 buildings and over 173,000 rooms, the hotel startup claims.

Oyo raised around $800 million from Japan's SoftBank Group Corp. last year as part of the Series E funding, which was followed by infusions from Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing and Asian ride-hailing giant Grab. This round valued the company at around $5 billion.

Article Original Source : https://www.livemint.com/companies/start-ups/oyo-books-200-million-funding-...