# Burger King "Moldy Whopper"

> A Whopper decayed over 34 days in a campaign announcing artificial preservative removal.

- Owner: Burger King
- Kind: Campaign
- Sector: Food & beverage
- Seed date: 2020-02-19
- Peak proxy date: 2020-02-19
- Date basis: Proxy date; not a directly measured attention peak.
- Spread Score: 49 (Notable, provisional), v1.3
- Mechanics: Transgression, Controversy, Platform jump, Press loop, Pairing

## Summary

Burger King released Moldy Whopper while removing artificial preservatives. Paid promotion, news coverage, retweets, Reddit debate and a Nando's response followed. The campaign won advertising awards; its sales lift was an entrant claim.

## Timeline

- 2020-02-19 — Burger King / INGO / DAVID / Publicis (YouTube) — Burger King released a film of a Whopper decaying to announce the removal of artificial preservatives.
- 2020-02-19 — ADWEEK / TIME / Fox Business (Press) — ADWEEK, TIME and Fox Business covered the campaign while the US preservative removal was still being rolled out.
- 2020-02-19 — Peak proxy: Online discussion tracked by Burger King and Brandwatch (Open web) — Machado reported a noon peak; Brandwatch's February 10-24 brand-disgust series peaked on the same date.

The full timeline, metrics and sources are on the case page, or via the Pro API (https://howitspread.com/developers).

Canonical URL: https://howitspread.com/cases/burger-king-moldy-whopper

Cite as: How It Spread (2026). “Burger King "Moldy Whopper".” Case HIS-01594. Spread Score v1.3: 49/100. Updated 2026-10-23. https://howitspread.com/id/HIS-01594