One of the biggest names in the burgeoning plant-based food market has secured $114 million in new financing.
Impossible Foods makes the Impossible Burger, a product that has quickly become very popular – with actress Sarah Michelle Gellar tweeting that it is ‘impossibly good‘. It was also enjoyed by leaders at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in January.
The winning ingredient is soy leghemoglobin – something that contains heme. “Heme is what makes meat taste like meat,” said Dr Patrick O. Brown Impossible Foods CEO and Founder – and the company has pioneered a technique to make it at scale without animals.
Currently available at more than 1000 restaurants across America, the Silicon Valley company will now be able to expand at home – and abroad – with the $114 million ‘convertible note financing’.
“Our world-class investors enable us to ramp up rapidly and accomplish our urgent mission,” added Dr Brown. “We are proud of the progress we’ve made — but frankly there are still millions of restaurants and billions of people who want meat. We won’t stop until the global food system is truly sustainable.”
The success of Impossible Foods is in line with the upward trend being experienced by the plant-based food industry; a market which Bruce Friedrich, Executive Director, The Good Food Institute, says entrepreneurs should enter to make money and save the world.
