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Impossible Foods brings total funding to $2B with new $500M raise
- TomVDB 5y ago$500M should be sufficient to buy out the little guy who registered the Impossible trademark way before Impossible Foods existed as a company. https://impossiblehq.com/impossible-foods-lawsuit-statement/ https://impossiblehq.com/impossible-foods-lawsuit-statement/
- garbagecoder 5y agoSomeone heard they were going to make pussy
- p0wn 5y ago[flagged]
- oh_sigh 5y agoPerhaps you've consumed too much industrial waste if you think pea/potato protein and coconut oil is industrial waste
- sjwalter 5y agoWhen have factories ever made healthful food?
- klyrs 5y agoI agree. These fake meats only get around the mistreatment of animals. As far as I can tell, they're worse for the environment and worse in terms of health impact than eating meat. Not too long ago, a local fake sausage maker got into trouble for dumping their industrial waste into a stream. It's possible to farm animals ethically. This is not the way.
- __float 5y agoDo you have any links to back up the claim that they're worse for the environment? I've heard that they're better, and my immediate reaction would be to believe that. It takes a lot of plant material to raise a cow, so cutting out that step (and using the plants more directly) would seem that plant-based "meat" needs less water, land, emissions, etc.
- p0wn 5y agoLook up monoculture and what it's doing to the land. Destroying it. Why are we subsidizing soy crops anyways? Soy is terrible for your health. It contains loads of phytoestrogen and allergens. We are reliant on exporting the crop because it's not a part of the typical american diet. It's just bad news altogether.
- philips 5y agoI agree about monocultures being an issue in industrial farming. However, I am skeptical of all of the claims about soy particularly if you eat it as only part of your diet. That said Beyond Meat doesn't contain soy. Impossible does though. https://www.beyondmeat.com/products/beyond-beef https://www.beyondmeat.com/products/beyond-beef
- Spooky23 5y agoProcessed legumes and coconut oil has its own issues.
- __float 5y ago
- loufe 5y agoI've switched maybe 1/3 of my meals to beyond/impossible in the last year. They truly are great shoe-ins. Impossible has really hit on something special as my girlfriend practically refuses to eat beyond but in into impossible's taste. It is a little tough sometimes seeing the cost be higher than the equivalent meat product but I'm sure this capital raising has the potential to lead to lower unit costs. It cannot be because of input that prices are as high as they currently are.
- 3pt14159 5y agoI'm presently torn about this. I want to be vegan / vegetarian as often as I can be for ethical / environmental reasons, but I find that whenever I eat a substitute it tastes like it should, but the satiation of the inner desire for meat isn't met. It's like smoking a nicotine-free cigarette or a non-alcoholic beer. Yeah, sure, it's better than nothing but I wish it fully replaced the experience because I would literally pay double not to cause an animal to suffer ever again.
- kevmo314 5y agoFocusing on non-substitutes helps. Dishes that play the strengths of vegetables taste far better than dishes that only attempt to replicate meat.
- kapp_in_life 5y agoYep, you have to learn new recipes but this is what I've done and works well. Don't really miss meat after redoing my cookbook to focus on south asian, buddhist, and other traditionally vegan or vegetarian cuisines. Dinner guests also prefer getting a freshly made curry instead of a sad frozen bean burger.
- mstade 5y agoI personally think it's a matter of mindset. First few times I tasted plant based meat substitutes I too had this feeling, but as soon as I stopped thinking of them as substitutes and just considered them a new category (if you will) of foods that feeling went away.
- antihero 5y agoHave these come to London yet? Seems like it's been forever :(
- dagw 5y agoHopefully soon. The problem, I as understood it, was that there was some ingredient in the Impossible Burger that wasn't approved in the EU, and Impossible hadn't done the necessary paperwork to get it approved. But now, in theory, there shouldn't be anything stopping the UK from allowing them.
- danpalmer 5y agoStill no. My guess is that they have hit regulatory issues in coming to Europe. Food standards are generally much higher here (including UK having still essentially the same EU regs), and while I doubt Impossible are doing anything bad, I suspect they are doing things different enough that it's hard to "prove" to regulators. While I'd love to be buying Impossible's products, I'm generally glad for the high standards.
- 4monthsaway 5y agoI've never actually tried this, anyone like it? Any specific product particularly good/bad?
- AlexandrB 5y agoThe spicy Italian Beyond Meat sausage - either barbecued or fried - makes a really nice hot dog. I've lost count of how many I had this summer. Edit: On the bad side - Canadian A&W featured Beyond Meat chicken nuggets. These tasted nothing like chicken. They weren't inedible, but not a good approximation of even the low quality nugget meat.
- wumpus 5y agoA single bite makes me ill, but apparently that's not typical.
- nikodunk 5y agoI've replaced much of my meat eating with Impossible (very available and relatively affordable at $5.99 in Trader Joe's in the US). Mainly for environmental/ethical reasons. Ground impossible meat is as good as real ground beef IMO, though it took me a while to realize that you need to salt/spice it just as you would real meat too! ie. if you put straight ground beef on a grill, it'll taste a little bland. Same with the fake meats.
- sokoloff 5y agoIt’s $5.99 for a 12oz package, or ~$8/lb.
- sjwalter 5y agoI've tried it. It doesn't taste terrible. It's clearly not meat, however. I'm biased (chicken farmer), but to me it seems quite strange to think that some highly-processed factory-produced meatlike substance could ever come close to matching the nutritive quality of well-raised and processed meat. Factories are in general not well-known for producing healthful food.
- 5y ago
- arduinomancer 5y agoNot a vegetarian but I would bet in 100-200 years eating real meat will become taboo.
- endisneigh 5y agoI'll take that bet.
- qolop 5y agoI agree. But we need to invent a word for meat eaters first, the same way we have a word for racists, misogynists, elitists etc.
- landonxjames 5y agoThe term I have seen used in some more vitriolic corners of the internet is "carnist"
- TundraFox 5y agoTheir food product is gross and makes me ill. There’s something “off,” about it. Maybe it’s just the BK burger they supply. Don’t know. But I do know it provokes an intestinal protest in me.
- endisneigh 5y agoIt's amusing how extremely processed food is becoming mainstream (part two).
- xyzzyz 5y agoIt’s different now. It’s the good, eco, vegan processed food, not the bad old processed food.
- endisneigh 5y agoHFCS is vegan, to be fair. Not really fair to say it's "good" - no long term studies have been done on it so far.
- carlsborg 5y agoWhat are the barriers to entry here? There are already hundreds of processed food companies. I fear that the difference between a reasonably nice tasting plant based burger and one that cooks like meat will be marginal in the long run.
- Spooky23 5y agoGross. Instead of addressing the problem of monopoly and factory meat, let’s drive towards Roman latifundia and pretend that soy, peas and coconut/palm oil are meat.
- diveanon 5y agoIt’s more than likely just the preparation, but I have found all the impossible/beyond meals I’ve eaten to be extremely salty. I want to like it, but honestly I would rather just eat a salad.
- jononomo 5y agoThe correct solution to providing affordable protein for the world is to use nuclear power to desalinate seawater and irrigate the Sahara Desert to turn it into a vast grassland that can support a billion cattle. The plain fact of the matter is that humans evolved on an almost exclusively meat-based diet and to this day thrive on an almost exclusively meat-based diet. Not only are plants toxic for humans, but widespread agriculture results in the loss of insect life, due to the massive use of insecticides, which in turn contributes to the loss of bird life due to the loss on insect life. Plant-based diets are terrible for human health and terrible for the environment, what with all the fossil-fuel-based fertilizers. The sooner we come to our senses and massively invest in regenerative herding the better off we'll be as a species. We should all be eating mostly red meat every day, with maybe a bit of fruit here and there -- this is by far the healthiest diet both for the human body and for the Earth as our home. And no, I'm not trolling -- this is my sincere and deeply-held belief.
- n_o_u 5y agoI'd honestly be really interested in seeing references. These are some strong statements, I'm searching for research on what you're claiming, but so far it does not appear to agree.
- dennis_jeeves 5y agoI really wish I could do this for you. But you see, collecting all references will end up taking several days of my time. But you can start with these 2 people here: https://shawn-baker.com/about/ https://shawn-baker.com/about/ http://www.ketotic.org/ http://www.ketotic.org/ Their talks do cite many references.
- wcoenen 5y ago> irrigate the Sahara Desert to turn it into a vast grassland that can support a billion cattle. There are currently about a billion cows[1], and these produce 14.5% of green house gases[2] (in the form of methane, measured as co2-equivalent). Doubling that would not be very good. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/263979/global-cattle-population-since-1990/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/263979/global-cattle-pop... [2] https://clear.ucdavis.edu/explainers/using-global-emission-statistics-distracting-us-climate-change-solutions https://clear.ucdavis.edu/explainers/using-global-emission-s...
- tonymet 5y agoWhy are people suddenly no longer concerned with processed foods? Impossible foods are more processed than a Doritos Locos taco
- Spooky23 5y agoThere is a bunch of VC money telling people that it’s “better” and upscale. It’s same as people putting water rinsed through oats as a cream substitute, who would no doubt cringe at putting coffeemate in their coffee!
- Shadonototra 5y agobecause: - it's a venture capitalist baby - people are paid be getting funded rather than selling their product to actual people because of the two points, you see it promoted online like propaganda because the venture capitalists want their money back, with profit
- phonypc 5y agoLots of people are still concerned with processed foods. How do you suppose this indicates otherwise?
- tonymet 5y agoThere's large overlap in the audience discouraging processed foods and promoting fake meat
- wittycardio 5y agoWhat does processed even mean lol, all food we eat is extremely human modified, all that matters is whether it's healthy or not and I don't think that the meat alternatives are any worse than meat
- ufo 5y agoOne formal definition is the NOVA food classification system, which distinguishes between levels of food processing. These meat alternatives would be classified as "ultra processed", together with oreos and McNuggets. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1368980017000234 https://doi.org/10.1017/S1368980017000234
- throwawaysea 5y agoI am honestly surprised there is so momentum behind Impossible or Beyond. Both are ultra processed foods, and their health and environmental implications are unclear. They are also not great substitutes for real meat - they simply don't have the same taste profile, although I will acknowledge it is not as far off as previous attempts at vegan burgers or other such products. I think they are good as their own type of product and don't mind the taste though. Are these really going to replace traditional meat products? In my mind, no. But investors seem to be taking that bet.
- ivraatiems 5y ago> Both are ultra processed foods, and their health and environmental implications are unclear. I think people may be confused about who Impossible and Beyond are marketing to. They are not marketing to people who don't want to eat a cheeseburger because it's too processed or even because it's meat. They are marketing to people who primarily want something that tastes good - not identical to meat, but delicious - and would secondarily prefer non-meat if it is available for equivalent taste. Whether something is "processed" or not doesn't come into it. Not everyone cares about how healthy or natural a food is. You can tell this because their marketing doesn't in any way promote their food as being particularly "natural" aside from being made from plants. It's all focused on how good it tastes and looks. On their homepage (https://impossiblefoods.com/ https://impossiblefoods.com/ as of this writing), Impossible Foods' first three pitches for their product are: 1) It tastes like meat and is delicious. 2) It's better for the environment. 3) It's better for the environment. You say their environmental impact is unclear - I don't think that's true. It is extremely difficult for even the most intensive plant-based food processes to come close to the environmental impact of meat. Even almond milk, for example, which is an environmental disaster due to its water use, is immensely better than animal milk.[0] Even if Impossible were only half as good for the environment as meat, it would still be enormously beneficial to consume Impossible preferentially, and I suspect it is much better than that. > Are these really going to replace traditional meat products? In my mind, no. They certainly won't replace things like whole-muscle cuts of meat. But as costs for meat rise, I could see them edging out the ground meats they intend to replace in a lot of areas. I could also see them being in an ideal position to design and produce non-animal or lab-grown cuts of meat for consumption. There are already some companies doing this: https://kuleana.co/ https://kuleana.co/ for example. If I were an investor, that's the bet I'd be making. [0] https://ideas.ted.com/which-plant-based-milk-is-best-for-the-planet/ https://ideas.ted.com/which-plant-based-milk-is-best-for-the...
- moltar 5y agoThe ingredients in that thing are scary.
- HelixEndeavor 5y agoWhy would I pay more for fake meat than I could pay for the real meat? imo if vegans want to push their food as a legitimate lifestyle, they should stop trying to imitate meat products. It's a self-defeating premise, an admission that vegan food doesn't taste as good, but "we can make it taste as good as meat with enough hard work and science!" If you want veganism to catch on, the correct argument is to say, straight up, with full confidence, "this is fully capable of tasting as good or better than meat all on its own!" And working to come up with delicious meals that embrace and utilize the flavors of veggies. Otherwise this will always be second best.