Impossible Foods
This article contains content that is written like an advertisement. (May 2019) |
Company type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Food |
Founded | 2011 |
Founder | Patrick O. Brown |
Headquarters | Redwood City, California, US |
Key people | Dennis Woodside (President)[1] |
Website | ImpossibleFoods.com |
Impossible Foods Inc. is a company that develops plant-based substitutes for meat and dairy products. Founded in 2011, and headquartered in Redwood City, California,[2] the company aims to give people the taste and nutritional benefits of meat and dairy without the negative health and environmental impacts associated with livestock products.[3] The company researches animal products at the molecular level, then selects specific proteins and nutrients from plants to recreate the experience of specific meat and dairy products.[3]
Its signature product, the Impossible Burger, was launched in July 2016.
Company and product history
In 2009, Stanford biochemistry professor Patrick O. Brown decided to devote an 18-month sabbatical to eliminating intensive animal farming, which he determined at the time to be the world's largest environmental problem.[4] With other academics, Brown co-organized a conference in 2010 in Washington, D.C., to raise awareness.[5] However, the National Research Council workshop "The Role of Animal Agriculture in a Sustainable 21st Century Global Food System" had minimal impact, and Brown decided soon after that the best way to reduce animal agriculture was to offer a competing product on the free market.[4]
Brown started Impossible Foods in 2011.[6] In July 2016, the company launched its first meat analogue product, the Impossible Burger, which is made from material derived from plants.[7] The company says that making it uses 95% less land and 74% less water, and it emits about 87% less greenhouse gas than making a ground beef burger patty from cows.[8] The plant-based burger has more protein, less total fat, no cholesterol, and fewer calories than a similar-sized hamburger patty made with beef.[9] It contains more sodium and more saturated fats than an unseasoned beef patty.[10] The Impossible Burger received Kosher certification in May 2018[11] and Halal certification in December 2018.[12]
On January 7, 2019, Impossible Foods launched a new version of their signature burger, the Impossible Burger 2.0. The company has stated that the new burger is "tastier, juicier and more nutritious – featuring 30% less sodium and 40% less saturated fat than our current recipe and just as much protein as 80/20 ground beef from cows." The new product is also gluten-free, replacing wheat with soy protein.[13]
CEO Pat Brown said they are working on "whole cuts of beef", including steak. "If we can make an awesomely delicious world-class steak ... that will be very disruptive not just to the beef industry, but to other sectors of the meat industry."[14]
Technology
Impossible Foods' scientists discovered that heme is a key factor in how meat behaves.[15] Heme is the molecule that gives blood its red color and helps carry oxygen in living organisms.[16] Heme is abundant in animal muscle tissue and is also found naturally in all living organisms.[17] Plants, particularly nitrogen-fixing plants and legumes, also contain heme.[18] The plant-based heme molecule is identical to the heme molecule found in meat.[19][20]
To produce heme protein from non-animal sources, Impossible Foods selected the leghemoglobin molecule found naturally in the roots of soy plants.[21] To make it in large quantities, the company's scientists genetically engineered a yeast and used a fermentation process very similar to the brewing process used to make some types of beer.[22]
In 2014, Impossible Foods obtained a Generally Recognized As Safe designation for the leghemoglobin in the company's flagship product.[23] In addition, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a "no questions" letter in July 2018, accepting the unanimous conclusion of a panel of food-safety experts that the protein that carries heme is safe to eat.[24]
The company said that its scientists created a chemical library of proteins and fats derived from plants and experimented with them as additional ingredients to mimic the texture of meat.[25] To replicate the fat in hamburgers made from cows, Impossible Foods used flecks of coconut fat, which were mixed with ground textured wheat and potato protein.[26] The potato protein provides a firm exterior when the "meat" is seared.[27] The coconut oil stayed solid until heated, when it melted in a similar manner to beef fat.[28]
Production and availability
In 2016 and 2017, Impossible Foods produced Impossible Burgers in both Redwood City, California, and Rutgers, New Jersey.[29] Since the production was in relatively small quantities, the burgers were not available at retail locations.[30] Impossible Foods also worked on plant-based products that emulated chicken, pork, fish, and dairy,[31] but decided to concentrate on creating a substitute for the ground beef in burger patties.[32]
The restaurant Momofuku Nishi in New York, owned by David Chang, began serving the Impossible Burger in July 2016.[33] In October 2016, the Impossible Burger became a standing menu item in selected additional restaurants in California,[34] such as Jardinière and Cockscomb in San Francisco, and Crossroads Kitchen in Los Angeles.[35] The Michelin-starred restaurant Public, operated by Brad Farmerie, began serving the Impossible Burger in January 2017.[36]
In March 2017, Impossible Foods announced it would build its first large-scale plant in Oakland, California, to produce 1 million pounds of plant-based burger meat a month.[34] In the first half of 2017, the Impossible Burger debuted on the menu of multi-unit franchises including Bareburger in New York City,[37] Umami Burger in California,[38] Hopdoddy in Texas,[39] and 33 & Melt in Florida.[citation needed] In April 2018, White Castle started serving Impossible Burgers. The partnership with White Castle eventually expanded to include all 377 of its locations.[40]
By July 2018, two years after its debut in New York, the Impossible Burger was available at about 3,000 locations in the United States and Hong Kong.[41]
In April 2019, Burger King began test marketing an Impossible Whopper using the patty at locations around St. Louis.[42] Later that month, the company announced plans to roll out Impossible Whoppers nationwide before the end of the year.[43] On April 16th, Qdoba announced that they would be "Adding Impossible™ to Restaurants Nationwide by May 28" [44]
Financing
Impossible Foods has raised rounds of $75 million and $108 million from investors including Google Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Viking Global Investors, UBS,[45] Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing's Horizons Ventures, and Bill Gates.[46] It was reported that Patrick Brown had turned down an offer of $300 million to buy out Impossible Foods in 2015.[32][47]
In August 2017, $75 million in additional financing was raised after reaching key objectives,[48] with Bill Gates investing additional money.[49]
In April 2018, an additional $114 million was raised, led by Singapore’s Temasek Holdings and Hong Kong-based Sailing Capital, bringing the total to $372 million.[50]
In May 2019 the company raised $300 million of investment.The total valuation of the company raised to $750 million.[51]
See also
References
- ^ "Impossible Foods Names Dennis Woodside As President". Restaurant News Resource. Mar 18, 2019. Retrieved March 20, 2019.
- ^ "Impossible Foods". Crunch Base. Retrieved 12 August 2015.
- ^ a b "Impossible Foods". Impossible Foods. Retrieved 2015-07-29.
- ^ a b "The Biography of a Plant-Based Burger: One man's mission to make meat obsolete". 2016-09-06.
- ^ "The Role of Animal Agriculture in a Sustainable 21 st Century Global Food System: A Scoping Workshop" (PDF). dels.nas.edu.
- ^ Loizos, Connie. "Impossible Foods Raises a Whopping $108 Million For Its Plant-Based Burgers". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2015-10-07.
- ^ Mic. "The Veggie Burger of the Future Cost $80M to Invent — And Carnivores Will Be Impressed".
- ^ "Sandwich of the Week, USA Today". 2016-09-06.
- ^ Hoshaw, Lindsey (June 21, 2016). "Silicon Valley's Bloody Plant Burger Smells, Tastes And Sizzles Like Meat". NPR. Retrieved 2016-07-28.
- ^ Lemonier, Gabrielle. "Great-Tasting Veggie Burgers are Here, But Are They Any Healthier?". Men's Journal. Retrieved 2017-04-18.
- ^ "Impossible Burger: Now Kosher!". Orthodox Union. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
- ^ Versano, Carlo (10 December 2018). "Impossible Foods Gets Halal Certification for Meatless Burger on Path to 'Serve the World'". Cheddar. Retrieved 27 December 2018.
- ^ Starostinetskaya, Anna (7 January 2019). "Impossible Foods unveils Impossible Burger 2.0". Retrieved 8 January 2019.
- ^ Lamb, Catherine (8 January 2019). "Video: Impossible Foods CEO Pat Brown says They'll Tackle Steak Next". Retrieved 13 January 2019.
- ^ "The Justice". 2016-09-29.
- ^ "The majority of oxygen in the body is transported by hemoglobin, which is found inside red blood cells".
- ^ Hamza, I; Dailey, HA. "One ring to rule them all: Trafficking of heme and heme synthesis intermediates in the metazoans". Biochim Biophys Acta. 1823: 1617–32. doi:10.1016/j.bbamcr.2012.04.009. PMC 3412874. PMID 22575458.
- ^ "This New Veggie Burger Bleeds Like Meat".
- ^ "Serving up a bloody veggie burger is the trick to convincing carnivores". Inverse.
- ^ "Myoglobin".
- ^ "Silicon Valley's Bloody Plant Burger Smells, Tastes And Sizzles Like Meat".
- ^ "A veggie burger that 'bleeds' might convince some carnivores to eat green". Public Radio International "The World". 2016-09-23.
- ^ "GRAS Notification for Soybean Leghemoglobin Protein Derived from Pichia pastoris" (PDF).
- ^ "Key ingredient in 'Impossible Burger' approved by FDA". CNBC. 2018-07-24.
- ^ Fellet, Melissae (13 October 2015). "A Fresh Take on Fake Meat". ACS Central Science. 1 (7): 347–349. doi:10.1021/acscentsci.5b00307.
- ^ Simon, Matt (2017-09-20). "Inside the Strange Science of the Fake Meat That 'Bleeds'". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2019-02-05.
- ^ "Welcome to the Era of Plant-Based Meat". Food&Wine. 2016-04-16.
- ^ "All about the Impossible Burger". 2016-09-12.
- ^ Wang, Ucilia (2017-03-02). "Can Impossible Foods and its plant burgers take on the meat industry?". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2017-04-18.
- ^ "There's a secret ingredient in the plant-based meat Google wanted to buy for $200 million". Tech Insider. 2016-07-19.
- ^ "Bleeding veggie burgers hit restaurants for first time". The Memo. 2016-07-27.
- ^ a b Rufford, Nick (2017-04-16). "Can the Impossible burger save the world?". The Times. Retrieved 2017-04-18.
- ^ "David Chang Adds Plant Based 'Impossible Burger' to Nishi Menu". 2016-07-26.
- ^ a b Robinson, Melia (2017-03-22). "A startup selling 'bloody' plant-based burgers has a new factory that can make 4 million burgers a month". Business Insider. Retrieved 2017-04-18.
- ^ "The Impossible Burger's West Coast Debut and the Wild Frontier of Plant-Based Meat". Forbes. 2016-10-13.
- ^ "We Tried a Michelin Star Version of Silicon Valley's Plant Burger That Bleeds Like Beef". 1 February 2017.
- ^ Rainey, Clint. "The Vegan Burger That 'Bleeds' Goes Mainstream at Bareburger".
- ^ Pierson, David. "Umami says its new veggie burger tastes like meat — and bleeds like meat". latimes.com.
- ^ "You can now get Impossible Burger's".
- ^ Devenyns, Jessi (13 September 2018). "Impossible Burger goes to White Castle". Food Dive. Retrieved 14 September 2018.
- ^ "A Major Victory for the Impossible Burger, the Veggie 'Meat' that Bleeds". Wired. 2018-07-24.
- ^ Lucas, Amelia (2019-04-01). "Burger King is testing vegetarian Whopper made with Impossible Burger". CNBC. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
- ^ Tyko, Kelly (2019-04-29). "Burger King plans to release plant-based Impossible Whopper nationwide by end of year". www.msn.com. Retrieved 2019-04-30.
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(help) - ^ Adding Impossible™ to Restaurants Nationwide by May 28
- ^ "Forget Lab Beef, Impossible Foods' 100% Plant-Based Cheeseburger Is Our Future". Motherboard. Retrieved 2015-10-07.
- ^ Katie Fehrenbacher (2014-10-08). "Meet Impossible Foods, another VC-backed veggie meat startup". Gigaom. Retrieved 2015-07-29.
- ^ Clements, Lana (2015-07-28). "Google tries to buy vegetarian burger business". Express. Retrieved 2017-04-18.
- ^
- ^ "Impossible Foods closes $75M funding round". www.meatpoultry.com.
- ^ "Temasek co-leads $114m investment in Asia-bound Impossible Foods".
- ^ "Daily Crunch: Impossible Foods raises $300M". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2019-05-15.
External links
Media related to Impossible Foods at Wikimedia Commons