Last year, we raised the bold question of whether a new vegetarian alternative to meat could revolutionize the food industry by taking on beef burgers.
Experts at Impossible Foods devised the Impossible Burger to deliver the exact taste, look, texture, smell and nutritional value of beef. By carefully selecting proteins, amino acids, fats and vitamins from plants to create the burgers, founders claimed it was a game changer for non-meat products. Impossible Foods found that by using wheat and potato proteins, coconut oil and key nutrients, along with a “magic ingredient” of Heme, the product inherits the exact and distinct attributes of beef – and consumers would be hard pressed to tell the difference.
And, how right they were.
Now, after less than a year since our last report, we look at how far the Impossible Burger has come and the bold impact it has already made on the food industry.
The Impossible Burger is fast-becoming a familiar brand in the United States, cropping up in restaurants all over California and New York and other locations are planned throughout 2017 and beyond. A new factory has been built in Oakland, California which will start to produce the burgers en masse. In fact, Impossible Foods invested roughly $108 million on the development of this facility.
In February, Impossible Foods secured a partnership with its first national burger chain Bareburger, and will provide the Impossible Burger on its vegan menu.
The burger has become so likened to meat products that the company is advocating its position on menus next to beef and lamb as opposed to being placed on vegetarian menus. The firm is expanding so fast, and the product is becoming more and more popular with customers that by 2020, experts believe Impossible Burger will become a global food phenomenon.
Investors certainly believe in the product. Founded in 2011 by Patrick O. Brown, M.D, Impossible Foods received financial backing from the likes of Bill Gates, Google Ventures, and UBS, to name but a few.
What’s more, by using only plant products, Impossible Foods is dramatically reducing “the resources needed to feed the world’s population and free land for wildlife and biodiversity.”
Damage to livestock and the havoc farming sites cause to the environment can be dramatically reduced by the widespread adoption of food development breakthroughs such as those of Impossible Foods products.
Not only is this bold idea taking off in a big way, but its set to revolutionize the food industry by not only producing a healthy and environmentally alternative to beef but is also animal friendly.