(USA)
A food startup making burgers from plants has attracted $75 million in investment.
Bill Gates is one of those backing Impossible Foods, which announced the closing of the investment – led by Singaporean investment firm Temasek – this week.
The company’s flagship product, the Impossible Burger, is made with plant-based ingredients, the most important being soy leghemoglobin, which contains heme – a molecule found in all animals and plants. Impossible Foods pioneered a method to produce it at scale without the need of animals.
“Our scientists spent so much time and effort studying a single molecule — heme — because heme is what makes meat taste like meat,” said Impossible Foods CEO and Founder, Dr Patrick O. Brown. “It turns out that finding a sustainable way to make massive amounts of heme from plants is a critical step in solving the world’s greatest environmental threat.”
The Impossible Burger needs 75% less water and creates 87% fewer greenhouse gases than traditional meat-based burgers. And the young company was recently granted a US patent for its tech used to make the leghemoglobin.