Chipotle Beware, Burger King Is Unleashing The Whopperito

To burrito or not to burrito – for fast food consumers in the age of Chipotle that has very much been the question. The answer, much to the chagrin of the long-term players in fast food, has been burrito, meaning the burger of late has been left out in the cold.

But perhaps the burger can ride again – in burrito form.

Burger King has officially decided to take a swipe at the recently besest Chipotle with what it is calling the Whopperito.

What is a Whopperito? Well, take the components of a Whopper –  beef, tomatoes, onions, lettuce and pickles – stuff them inside a flour tortilla, replace the mayo with queso sauce – and hooray, you have the crime against burgers, burritos and nature itself that is the Whopperito.

“It’s certainly one of the first times that we’ve tapped into the Tex-Mex category,” Alex Macedo, North American president at Burger King, said in an interview. “It’s one of the fastest-growing categories — consumers like the freshness of it, they like the mix of flavors.”

So Burger King pursued neither of those things — since, remember, they are using the same ingredients and flavor palate of a Whopper — and instead worked hard to make a burrito-shaped Whopper.

But it might just work, since Chipotle did give hundreds of food poisoning for Christmas in 2015. And there is some evidence the Whopperito is exactly what the marketplace is looking for – born in some franchises in Ohio and Pennsylvania and quickly tested in a handful of U.S. locations, the Whopperito is ready for the mass market, according to Macedo.

But then some consumers will likely pay more to get a little of the heat that is generally associated with Tex-Mex food in their burrito on the go. The Whopperito is meant to appeal to the broadest possible swath of Americans, which means it is likely going to be on the less spicy side.

“It’s not too spicy,” Macedo said. “It’s funky, but it’s not polarizing.”