Fast Food First: Natalie Portman's Favorite Vegan Bacon Lands at 510 Burger King Locations Permanently

Globally, Burger King is becoming a plant-based mecca and this winter, the fast-food giant is going one major step further. Starting January 4, 2023, vegan bacon will hit the menu at all 510 Burger King locations across the United Kingdom. 

The new plant-based bacon is made by La Vie, a French company that counts vegan actress Natalie Portman as an investor. The vegan bacon will be included in a menu that Burger King will reveal shortly. 

Burger King

“We are very proud to be partnering with Burger King, bringing our multi-award-winning, plant-based bacon La Vie to their restaurants,” Romain Jolivet, Chief Marketing Officer at La Vie, said in a statement. “This will allow us to accelerate the pace of switching from animal-based meat to plant-based, which is a climate emergency we are all facing.” 

The new vegan bacon—which also has retail distribution across Europe—is hitting the Burger King UK menu in time for Veganuary, an annual campaign that challenges people to go vegan for the months of January and beyond. And while many businesses offer Veganuary specials, the La Vie vegan bacon will remain on the Burger King UK menu permanently. 

Vegan bacon at Burger King

A number of fast-food chains are dipping their toes into the plant-based space with limited-time offers and test locations. Not Burger King. The international company has explored vegan food with gusto around the world. In Europe and other regions, Burger King works with The Vegetarian Butcher as its main supplier of plant-based alternatives such as its meatless Whoppers and vegan chicken. 

In addition to developing plant-based versions of its core menu items, Burger King began experimenting with innovative add-ons when it added La Vie’s vegan bacon to its 550 locations in France last year.

La Vie

This happened after La Vie engaged the fast-food chain in a month-long campaign around the Veggie Steakhouse, Burger King’s vegan take on a classic menu item that excluded a plant-based replacement for the bacon component. 

With La Vie coming to the Burger King menu in the UK, the company hopes that plant-based eating becomes even more popular. “Thanks to the open-mindedness and leadership of Burger King, proactively moving towards more plant-based options, millions of consumers will be able to try our next generation of plant-based bacon,” Jolivet said. 

“With only seven ingredients and a product packed with proteins and [fiber], this is a bakon for the kings, not for the clowns,” he said in tongue-in-cheek reference to Ronald McDonald, the mascot of Burger King’s top competitor. 

Burger King’s foray into plant-based food has also resulted in meatless (and sometimes all vegan) pop-ups around the world, including in Germany, Spain, the UK, Israel, Costa Rica, and more. The vegan bacon was first introduced into the UK market through two vegan popups Burger King hosted earlier this year in Bristol and London—where guests could try it as part of the Bakon King burger. 

Burger King

The vegan bacon’s permanent menu placement is also a step for Burger King UK in achieving its goals of offering a menu that is half plant-based. “We are thrilled to be joining forces with La Vie,” Soco Núñez de Cela, Burger King UK Director of Communications, said in a statement.  “The synergy between our two brands and fierce campaign tactics meant this partnership was a match made in heaven.”

“After the huge success of our Bristol and Leicester Square meat free restaurants, we look forward to building on our partnership with La Vie to ensure we meet our goal to become 50 percent plant-based by 2030 in the UK,” Núñez de Cela said. 

Outside of Europe, Burger King works with other companies to add vegan food to its menus, including in Latin America where it partnered with The Not Company (NotCo) to offer its NotChicken—plant-based chicken created with the help of artificial intelligence. 

Bringing home the vegan bacon

The plant-based revolution at Burger King began in its home country in 2019 when it worked with Impossible Foods to add the first plant-based burger, the Impossible Whopper, to its more than 7,000 locations across the United States. 

Burger King

Burger King has explored other plant-based possibilities with its longtime partner Impossible Foods—including a meatless pork-filled Croissan’wich and plant-based chicken sandwiches—but none have seemed to stick yet. While Burger King’s plant-based developments abroad are vast and growing, the fast-food chain has yet to add vegan bacon to its US menu. For its part, Impossible Foods teased the development of a vegan bacon back in 2020 but that product has yet to materialize.

However, new entrants into the plant-based bacon space might move that needle forward. California-based Hooray Foods released a meatier vegan bacon this summer and expanded its retail distribution to Canada. 

My Forest Foods

Meanwhile, New York-based MyForest Foods—which makes its MyBacon from mycelium, the fast-growing roots of mushrooms—is slated to scale production at a newly opened Swersey Silos, a 120,000-square-foot vertical mycelium farm.

And then there is Umaro Foods, a Mark Cuban-backed company that makes bacon from umami-rich seaweed protein which is rolling out this year into foodservice, including Michelin-starred San Francisco restaurant Sorrel.

Anna Starostinetskaya is the Senior News Editor at VegNews and is always keeping an eye on all things vegan in her home city of San Francisco, CA and everywhere else.