Air New Zealand Does The “Impossible” With New Business Class Burger

In-flight marketing and product collaborations come in all shapes and sizes—including various forms of burger patties. Air New Zealand is coming in for a second helping of the Impossible Burger, a meat-free patty that started in Silicon Valley and has taken the world by storm.

This is the same airline that recently launched a partnership with buzzy wool shoe brand, Allbirds—also a Silicon Valley-based startup. It should then come as no surprise that this burger collab is being re-launched exclusively for Air New Zealand Business Premier customers between San Francisco and Auckland.

Allbirds x Air New Zealand sleep mask.

Impossible Burger x Air New Zealand

The Impossible Burger by Impossible Foods was launched in 2016 after years of research and development (and some meat controversy.) This burger might be entirely vegan, but it smells, sizzles, and even bleeds like a tried and true meat burger. Its key ingredient is a molecule, heme, which Impossible Foods has exclusively sourced from the roots of soy plants. It’s the same molecule found in animal meat but contains no animal products whatsoever.

Air New Zealand became the first airline in the world to pilot the award-winning burger back in July on its Los Angeles to Auckland route and is bringing it back—in slider form this time.

Our Impossible Burger is a really generously sized serving, so this time around we’re taking the opportunity to make it a bit lighter by serving it as bite sized sliders.  The dish will include three Impossible Burger sliders accompanied by tomato jalapeno chutney, sundried tomato mayo with buttermilk slaw and vegetable crisps on the side. – Inflight Customer Experience Manager, Niki Chave

The Upshot

I’m all for cool, cross-promotional product initiatives. For the Impossible Burger, it ups its brand cache while Air New Zealand benefits from staying current on the food and tech-y trends in the Valley. And clean-eating startup execs can now have their burger onboard.

I’m impressed with the nimble-ness of the marketing team at Air New Zealand as they continue to innovate on the smaller in-flight marketing initiatives that often get overlooked.