Whether you’re a vegan or a meat-eater, Impossible Foods is a company you should know. It’s so much more than a business that makes veggie burgers; it’s a vessel to achieve the founder’s ambitious environmental vision. And they’ve totally changed the meat industry.
The main driving force behind Impossible Foods is the founder and CEO’s idea that it’s possible to end all meat consumption by 2035.
Seems a bit unrealistic? Well, when you consider just how much the company has changed the food industry, it might not just be a pipe dream.
Impossible Foods has successfully disrupted the meat industry, making ‘meatless meat’ the new norm. They achieved this through a totally unique business model and position in the market.
So, how exactly did this sustainable, fake meat company build itself into a $7 billion dollar empire?
What is Impossible Foods?
First of all, what is Impossible Foods and what do they do?
In case you don’t know, Impossible Foods is a company that produces innovative plant-based meat solutions. The aim of the company is to provide a meat alternative that looks and tastes just like meat while maintaining all of the nutritional benefits.
Unlike regular plant-based meat substitutes, Impossible Foods tries to replicate the real thing.
The company is focused on molecular research of animal products to discover the best plant-based proteins and nutrients to create the most realistic fake meat products possible.
Impossible Foods started out with its famous Impossible Burgers and has moved on from ground beef to create a wider range of plant-based products — like “chicken nuggets” and “sausage”.
Who Started Impossible Foods?
Impossible Foods was started by Patrick Brown, a Stanford professor specializing in gene mapping. In 2009 he took an 18-month sabbatical from his career to eliminate what he had determined to be the world’s most destructive environmental problem: industrial meat production.
First, he tried to educate people about this problem through a workshop. His workshop, called “The Role of Animal Agriculture in a Sustainable 21st Century Global Food System” never made much of an impact. This made him realize that education wasn’t the best approach to get people to stop eating meat.
His next idea was to find a way to stop using animals for the production of meat. This is where the idea behind Impossible Foods came about.
Patrick Brown’s Theory
Patrick Brown came up with a simple, but bold, theory to eliminate industrial meat production. He hypothesized that if we start using plant-based sources to somehow replicate the meat that we eat, meat eaters would no longer have to rely on animals for food.
From an economical point of view, he wanted to take over the free market and beat the meat industry with a better, more sustainable alternative.
Basically, he didn’t just want to make a ‘meaty’ product for vegetarians, he wanted to recreate meat with plants in order to sop our dependency on animal products.
Above: Impossible Foods CEO and founder Patrick Brown (Source)
Why Impossible Foods is Not Just Another Plant-Based Burger Business
Patrick Brown had this idea in 2009. At this point, there were already tons of plant-based meat companies out there. So, what did Brown do that was so different?
Well, he figured out the root of the problem. All of the existing plant-based foods were targeted towards vegetarians and vegans. So, even if they didn’t replicate the exact taste of real meat, it wouldn’t matter. None of these products were designed to cut down meat production, they were simply a meat replacement for those who were already on a plant-based diet.
So Brown did two things that put Impossible Foods into a league of its own.
Plant-Based ‘Meat’ for Meat Eaters
The first thing Patrick Brown decided to do was to create a product for hardcore meat lovers. Remember, his idea was to move people away from meat, not just supplement an existing vegetarian diet.
Of course, the idea wasn’t enough on its own. What Brown really had to work on was finding out how to make Impossible Food’s products taste like meat. This is where his next unique idea developed.
Realistic Plant-Based ‘Meat’
Instead of just creating something that tasted good from a few chickpeas and beans, Brown wanted Impossible Food products to really resemble meat. So, he put his scientific background to work.
He started off with deep research into why people loved meat so much. He learned as much as he could about the kind of biochemical reactions that are triggered in our bodies when we consume meat. He tried different plant-based ingredients to replicate those reactions by mixing different proteins and fatty acids.
This was a more scientific approach that no one else had tried before. It’s one of the main reasons why Brown had no trouble convincing venture capitalists to give him the seed funding he needed to kick the project off.
Impossible Foods Funding, Development, and Launch
Despite his lack of business experience, investors still helped Impossible Foods raise about $3 million dollars in its very first round of funding. Now Brown had all the resources he need to target the meat industry at large.
Of course, an idea as revolutionary as this was going to take time to come to fruition. From 2011 to 2016, Brown’s team was focused on developing a product that they could introduce to the market. During this period, the team’s research and development efforts went hand-in-hand with investor support.
The company spent its first year after the launch solely focusing on research and development and through the process, they managed to create a non-meat-based heme molecule that is responsible for the taste and texture of ground beef. After this revolutionary discovery, Impossible Foods was able to raise another round of funding, this time going above $75 million.
After five full years, the company was able to launch its flagship product in 2016 — The Impossible Burger.
How Impossible Foods Went From a Crazy Idea to a Billion-Dollar Business
Patrick Brown’s ambitious idea was finally launched into the world. Here’s a quick breakdown of how Impossible Foods went from a far-off idea to a revolutionary force in the world of food.
Impossible Foods Production
First, Impossible Foods needed to scale up its production. Their burger had an awesome launch with some killer marketing behind it, but it was still a very exclusive product. His is because of the low-volume production of the burger.
The low-volume production also meant that a single Impossible Burger cost around $13.95 dollars — a price that not everyone could pay. So, Brown knew that he needed to increase his production — and fast! He decided to shift the company to a larger factory in Oakland where they started producing around 4 million burgers a month.
Widespread Availability
With supply starting to be able to more reasonably meet demand, Impossible Foods could lower its prices and fulfill larger contract volumes.
The company slowly started supplying their product all across America. By July 2018, two years after its debut in New York, the Impossible Burger has gone international and was available at about 3,000 locations in the United States along with Hong Kong.
Their products are now available all around the world. You can buy Impossible Foods products in restaurants and grocery stores.
Impossible Burgers soon started appearing on menus in places like Burger King and Starbucks. In no time, the whole world knew about these products. Today, more than 30,000 restaurant locations serve the company’s meat alternatives.
Product Expansions
Of course, that’s not where Brown wanted to stop. After all, a total take-down of the meat industry will take a whole lot more.
In 2019, Brown decided to re-launch his iconic Impossible Burgers by developing an entirely new formula for them. The Impossible Burger 2.0 was gluten-free, replacing wheat with soy protein. According to Brown himself, this version was ‘tastier, juicier and more nutritious’ with ten times the nutrients you would get from plant-based meat. So, not only does the Impossible Meat taste like real meat, it is in fact better than real meat.
After a successful run of the Impossible Burger, Brown decided to launch his second product — the Impossible Sausage. This was designed to be launched in collaboration with Little Caesar’s in the form of the ‘Impossible Sausage Pizza’.
More recently, the company introduced a range of plant-based ‘chicken nuggets’.
Impossible vs Beyond Meat
You can’t talk about Impossible Foods without making a comparison to their biggest competitor — Beyond Meat.
The important thing to point out is that Beyond Meat does not use any kind of synthetic ingredients to create its plant-based meat products. While Impossible Foods is entirely based on the genetic modification of ingredients and proteins to make your fake meat burger taste more ‘meaty’.
Because of this, people who are more health-conscious might prefer Beyond Meat. As far as the market competition goes though, Impossible Foods is considered to be outselling its competition by a huge percentage.
Many people have a problem with Impossible Food’s use of modified soy. However, the recipe seems to be doing exactly what the company’s founder intended it to — becoming a new form of meat.
How Much is Impossible Foods Worth?
Despite all of these challenges, as of now, the total valuation of the company is around $4 billion.
With investments from companies like Microsoft and people like Katy Perry, Jaden Smith, and Trevor Noah — it’s pretty obvious that the company has managed to garner a huge list of supporters for its cause, raising over $7 billion dollars in valuation over the years.
The company is set to go public soon, which will help to add more value to Impossible Foods.
What’s Next For Impossible Foods?
As far as the future goes, Impossible Foods plans on expanding its product range and expanding its fake meat line. The company is also set to double the size of its research team to develop and test a prototype of dairy-free Impossible Milk. And if it’s anything like their meat-less meat, the company is sure to keep their winning streak going big.
Summary
Whether you’re a vegan or not, Impossible Foods is a company you should know. The company’s founder forged a totally new path in the world of food production by creating plant-based ‘meat’ aimed at meat-eaters. This was done to support his environmental goal.
And his idea seems to be working because Impossible Foods has managed to turn fake meat into a billion-dollar company. Do you think Patrick Brown will be able to achieve his vision of eliminating meat production?
Read more about the Impossible Foods business model here.
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