In a proposed class action, Phillip Williams said he bought an Impossible Whopper, a plant-based alternative to Burger King’s regular Whopper, at an Atlanta drive-thru, and would not have paid a premium price had he known the cooking would leave it “coated in meat byproducts.”

The lawsuit filed in Miami federal court seeks damages for all U.S. purchasers of the Impossible Whopper, and an injunction requiring Burger King to “plainly disclose” that Impossible Whoppers and regular burgers are cooked on the same grills.

Burger King, a unit of Toronto-based Restaurant Brands International, declined to comment, saying it does not discuss pending litigation.

Its website describes the Impossible Burger as “100 per cent Whopper, zero per cent Beef,” and adds that “for guests looking for a meat-free option, a non-broiler method of preparation is available upon request.”

Williams’ lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the disclaimer or the available cooking options.

Impossible Foods, which helped create the Impossible Whopper, has said it designed the product for meat eaters who want to consume less animal protein, not for vegans or vegetarians.

“For people who are strictly vegan, there is a microwave prep procedure that they’re welcome to ask for in any store,” Dana Worth, Impossible Foods’ head of sales, said in a recent interview.

Burger King began selling the Impossible Whopper in August.

Restaurant Brands, which also owns Canadian coffee and restaurant chain Tim Hortons and U.S. chicken chain Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, is overseen by Brazilian private equity firm 3G Capital.

— Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York and Richa Naidu in Chicago.

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The new burger, called “the Imposter Burger,” will have a fillet made from a meat substitute product, Quorn, instead of its classic chicken breast fillet, the company said in a statement on Thursday.

Plant-based substitutes for meat have been all the rage as more people shift toward vegan or vegetarian diets, amid growing concerns about health risks from eating meat, animal welfare and the environmental hazards of intensive animal farming.

KFC said the burger is being tested in London, Bristol and the Midlands for four weeks before it decides to roll it out nationally.

KFC is hoping to replicate the success that British bakery chain Greggs has witnessed with its wildly popular vegan sausage rolls.

In April, McDonald’s started selling burgers in Germany with a patty made from soy and wheat, while Del Taco launched “Beyond Taco” in late April, using U.S.-based Beyond Meat’s plant-based protein.

— Reporting for Reuters by Aishwarya Venugopal in Bangalore.

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Imvescor Restaurant Group announced Friday it has terminated a deal it announced back in March to sell its Groupe Commensal subsidiary to an arm of processor Pasta Romana Foods for about $4.2 million.

Imvescor didn’t give a specific reason for walking away from the deal, except to cite “material breaches of the agreement” by Montreal-based Pasta Romana’s affiliate.

Imvescor said Friday it’s also “evaluating the alternatives available to it in light of the termination of the agreement.”

Imvescor had said as recently as June that it expected to close the sale in mid-July, pending “certain customary closing conditions and purchase price adjustments.”

Commensal markets vegetarian refrigerated and frozen prepared dishes, soups, stews and sauces through major supermarkets, grocers and health food stores in Quebec and in health food stores in Ontario.

Imvescor had said in March it wanted to sell Boisbriand-based Commensal to better focus on its restaurant franchising business and “to remain an asset-light entity.”

Pasta Romana makes fresh pastas, pasta sauces, pesto and packaged entrees such as tortellini, cannelloni, manicotti, ravioli and perline, marketing under its own brand name and to private-label clients. — AGCanada.com Network

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Imvescor Restaurant Group announced Tuesday it has reached a deal to sell its Groupe Commensal subsidiary to Montreal processor Pasta Romana Foods for about $4.2 million.

Commensal markets vegetarian refrigerated and frozen prepared dishes, soups, stews and sauces through major supermarkets, grocers and health food stores in Quebec and in health food stores in Ontario.

Imvescor said Tuesday its management recently agreed on a plan to sell Boisbriand-based Commensal to better focus on its restaurant franchising business and “to remain an asset-light entity.”

Imvescor’s remaining products in the retail grocery market are items connected to its restaurant chains, including Baton Rouge pulled pork, fries, barbecue sauce, marinade and coleslaw, Mikes pizzas, pasta sauces, pizza sauces and sliced pepperoni, and Scores pork ribs.

Proceeds from the Commensal deal, which is expected to close before the end of Imvescor’s second fiscal quarter of fiscal 2017, are expected to support the company’s “strategic acquisition strategy of brands that complement its existing portfolio.”

Imvescor completed its most recent acquisition at the end of February, buying the Ben + Florentine breakfast and lunch dining chain for $17.7 million. The chain operates in Quebec and Ontario and recently expanded westward with a site in Winnipeg.

“The staff and management of Commensal have been a great team to work with and they continue to produce an exceptional product,” Imvescor CEO Frank Hennessey said in a release Tuesday. “We know that under the guidance of the Pasta Romana group, Commensal will continue to grow.”

Pasta Romana, a family business operating since 1996, makes fresh pastas, pasta sauces, pesto and packaged entrees such as tortellini, cannelloni, manicotti, ravioli and perline, marketing under its own brand name and to private-label clients. — AGCanada.com Network

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The tweet, published on the official Bayer CropScience (@Bayer4crops) account on Sunday, linked to a Vox.com article that said “going vegetarian can cut your food carbon footprint in half.”

The post sparked a backlash on Twitter from North American grain growers who sell much of their harvests to livestock operations and from farmers who raise animals. A decline in meat consumption would hurt their incomes.

“Oh you just lost all my business,” Lance Schiele (@schiele_lance), a livestock producer and grain farmer, said in a tweet to Bayer CropScience.

The gaffe comes as Bayer is trying to acquire Monsanto, the world’s largest seed maker. The potential tie-up has faced resistance from some farmers worried about consolidation in the agriculture sector.

A Bayer CropScience spokesman said on Monday that the tweet was a mistake and did not reflect the company’s views.

The company has deleted the posting and tweeted apologies to about 130 individual Twitter users who complained about it.

“The livestock industry feeds our planet + we’re glad to support it. It was never our intention to antagonize it — sorry!” Bayer CropScience tweeted repeatedly.

Some farmers applauded the company for apologizing but others were fuming.

“This week we will decide about which fungicides to purchase. Probably won’t be Bayer products after this tweet,” tweeted Dane Visscher (@danevisscher), a grain farmer.

— Reporting for Reuters by Tom Polansek in Chicago.

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From Oct. 1 to Nov. 18 McDonald’s will offer “McB” burgers, made with organic beef sourced from organic farms in Germany and Austria.

The move from the world’s biggest restaurant chain by revenue comes as it is revamping food-sourcing practices as part of new CEO Steve Easterbrook’s effort to transform McDonald’s into a “modern, progressive burger company.”

Germans, known for their love of sausages, are eating less meat and more vegetarian food as concerns grow about health, animal welfare and the environmental cost of livestock farming.

In Germany, beef certified as “organic” must come from cattle that eat organically grown feed and graze on pasture where synthetic chemical fertilizers and pesticides are not used.

“We have made a great effort to secure sufficient quantities of meat which satisfies the organic requirements and our own quality claims,” said Holger Beeck, chief executive of McDonald’s Germany.

McDonald’s has tweaked menus and worked to improve service in Germany, one of its top European markets. The company’s quarterly sales at established restaurants in Germany recently grew for the first time since the middle of 2012.

A McDonald’s U.S. spokeswoman declined to say whether the company would roll out the burger to other markets.

Sales at McDonald’s have slumped, in part due to competition from newer chains including Chipotle Mexican Grill, which for years has offered meat from animals raised without hormones and antibiotics.

McDonald’s USA said in March that within two years, it would stop buying meat from chickens raised with antibiotics vital to human health.

That move was cheered by public health and consumer advocates, who are concerned that overuse of antibiotics in meat production is contributing to rising numbers of life-threatening human infections from antibiotic-resistant bacteria dubbed “superbugs.”

Still, a shareholder group thinks the company has not gone far enough. It is renewing its call for McDonald’s to stop buying any meat from animals raised with antibiotics vital to fighting human infections.

Earlier this month, McDonald’s said its 16,000 U.S. and Canadian restaurants would switch cage-free eggs by 2025.

— Lisa Baertlein is a Reuters correspondent covering the restaurant and grocery sectors from Los Angeles.

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