An Irish food producer, Finnebrogue Artisan, has secured the first-ever Guinness World Record for the largest vegan burger. 

It took 10 employees to craft the burger. It measured 1.2m in diameter and weighed in at a hefty 162.5kg – nearly 40 percent over the target weight of 100kg.

The patty was the equivalent to 1,274 of the company’s regular Naked Evolution burgers. 

It was topped with 10kg of tomatoes, 4.5kg of lettuce, and 7kg of cheese. It also featured 2kg of tobacco onions, 5kg of gherkins, 5kg of meat-free bacon, and 5kg of Naked Burger sauce. 

Once the burger was verified by the Guinness World Records team, Finnebrogue divvied up the patty to share with employees and local people experiencing homelessness. 

The details

Finnebrogue’s communications manager Anthea McAuley elaborated on the requirements of the record-breaking dish.

“All ingredients had to be verified as vegan. We used our own Naked Evolution Burger recipe, which we launched in September 2021, and worked with local bakery, Irwins, to create a vegan bread bun,” McAuley said in a statement.  

“To avoid food waste on the day, which is in line with our own policies and that of the Guinness World Records, we donated some finished burger slices to homeless charity, The Simon Community. Our staff also enjoyed the tasty burger for their lunch.

“All stages of the record attempt were managed by our marketing manager, Kerri Smith on the day, which had to be evidenced and verified by independent experts before the adjudicator confirmed a record was set.”

Record-breaking burger

Sean Kearney, Finnebrogue’s innovation process manager, revealed that when Smith first approached him with the idea, he thought it was a joke. 

He continued: “The team included representatives from NPD, marketing and engineering; and together we designed and built everything, including a swing to aid turning the patty during cooking. That was perhaps the most challenging part of the record as we didn’t want to break the patty.”

“The patty took almost nine hours to cook so the day was long. However, when we added all the condiments and Jack revealed the weight of the burger, we were elated!” he added, referring to Jack Brockbank, the Guinness World Records adjudicator. 

“Huge congratulations to the Finnebrogue Artisan team for achieving the largest vegan burger!” Brockbank said in a statement. 

“It takes some considerable planning and organisation to pull off a feat of this magnitude.”