Impossible Foods is transforming the global food system by inventing a better way to make the meats and cheeses we love, without using animals. We start by understanding what we love about the wonderfully complex experience of eating meat and dairy foods, and then exploring the plant world to find and bring together specific proteins and nutrients to recreate those experiences. Our mission is to make the global food system truly sustainable by eliminating the need to make food from animals.
We started in 2011 with a simple question: “Why does meat taste like meat?” We spent the next five years researching every aspect of the unique sensory experience of meat, from how it looks raw to how it sizzles and what happens when we sink our teeth into a burger. Then we recreated the precise flavors, textures, aromas, and nutrition of ground beef -- using only plants. By understanding meat at the molecular level, we made a juicy, delicious burger that's better for the planet.
Success is happening fast. Impossible Foods has raised more than $675 million to make a burger engineered from plants that tastes at least as good as ground beef. Patrick O. Brown, the CEO of the five-year-old food startup, is a famed Stanford geneticist who previously started the nonprofit Public Library of Science. The plant-based food company is now based in Redwdood City.
Compared to a burger made from cows, making an Impossible Burger uses about 1/20th the land, 1/4th the water, and produces 1/8th the greenhouse gas emissions.