Impossible Foods raises $200M in fresh funding | Hacker News Reader

Impossible Foods raises $200M in fresh funding

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50 pointsrandtrain3474 comments

I've been using their meat in things like pastas and tacos and it's slightly tastier. The thing that hit me is that we consume so much meat in a heavily processed way that it seems silly a creature should have to suffer and die to make it. I'm all for aged steaks and prosciutto in moderation, but a large portion of the meat is consumed in nugget or other forms that don't really respect the sacrifice of the animal or pollution created.

Agreed. I’ve switched to eating mostly vegan because most meat I used to eat was sort of just filler. If I go out somewhere and they specialize in something meat related and I know it’s going to be amazing, then I’ll get it.

Eating lots of heavily processed chicken, cow and pigs just isn’t worth the many costs to environment, animal wellbeing, and potentially personal nutrition.

I recommend everyone to consciously lower their meat intake. It doesn’t need to be forever or for every meal.

Where do you get enough protein to maintain muscle integrity ?

I'm not a vegan but beans and rice go a long way.

Beans also have tons of fiber. You can easily get 20 grams of mostly soluble fiber from a bowl of beans.

It’s generally a myth that vegans don’t get enough protein. There are tons of vegan based proteins and Americans are obsessed with maximizing protein intake where you really don’t need to.

There’s plenty of vegan athletes and weight lifters. If they don’t have issues as an elite athlete I doubt the average person will have an issue.

I have been eating similarly to the parent poster recently (trying to avoid meat and dairy as much as possible). The three major sources of protein I use now are black beans, kidney beans, peanut butter, and tofu. I also sometimes eat tempeh which can be good in the right contexts.

It takes some effort, but it's fairly straightforward if you can find ways to substitute it into your daily meals. I like taking an existing meal and just replacing the animal products from it. One example I like is a chicken curry wrap. It's just chicken mixed with mayo, curry powder, celery and onions, all stuffed into a wrap. I've substituted a lightly fried tofu in place of the chicken and a vegan mayo instead.

Vegan for 20+ years (now 40). I've never had any protein deficiency or any other nutrition related health problems. I weight lift so I take a scoop or 2 of brown rice/pea/soy protein which gets me to what any muscle gain diet guidelines recommend.

Don’t the impossible/beyond meats still have a higher environmental impact than poultry?

I can't seem to find any information about this, do you have a source?

At least for CO2 emissions it looks like they're roughly on par with each other. Impossible Foods claims a 3.5 kg CO2-eqv. per kg product[1]. For chicken meat, the emissions depend a lot on how and where they're raised, but according to this UN report[2] it's roughly 2.7-8 with an average of ~5.4. It's a bit lower for eggs at 2-5 with an average of ~3.7.

EDIT: This study[3] has a more detailed breakdown which roughly matches the numbers from the UN report. For meat: 2.3-12, average 5.7, median 4.3. For eggs: 2.6-7.6, average 4.2, median 3.8

[1] https://impossiblefoods.com/mission/lca-update-2019/

[2] http://www.fao.org/3/i3460e/i3460e.pdf

[3] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987

Same situation here. For steaks and other things like that, I've moved to exclusively using a local butcher who has all of their livestock grown for them in small quantities on very small regional farms. For the other stuff, I can hardly tell a difference so have been using Impossible products.

It kind of gives me the best of both worlds: kind farming conditions for the steaks/etc. and no farming conditions for the hamburger/nuggets type of stuff. It's a compromise that is consistent with my ethical framework.

There are only so many prime cuts, such as steaks, in a steer. Ground beef and sausages are what you make with the rest of that animal.

In this case it's definitely more about the quality of the animal's condition while being raised. I do buy this shops sausages because they custom make them from the same livestock. I guess my main point is that I've been trying to avoid anything that comes from a factory farm and substituting that with impossible product.

I dunno, nuggets use a lot of meat that isn’t really saleable as prettier breasts/thighs.

If you eliminate all usage of the 'highly processed meats' such as ground beef, chicken nuggets, sausage, etc., you may make a dent in farm animal populations, but the high-value cuts will still keep the meat industry going.

As someone who grew up vegetarian and tasted meat afterwards, I feel it's hard for me to understand the attachment of people to meat. I was recommended to add some meat and eggs as a dietary measure along with supplements.

It wasn't as flavorful as I expected it to be. I liked Indian meat dishes a bit but if you substituted meat with tofu or paneer (cottage cheese), you wouldn't notice much of an improvement. Veggies certainly feel more flavorful combined with spices. Meat/tofu/cottage cheese only gives it structure. Although that might be the nature of Indian recipes.

Some substitution you can try for meat burgers:

https://youtu.be/ordrthopTvk

https://youtu.be/3z8-3kUrXKY

https://youtu.be/Y3anbFCWjb4

Go to a very expensive restaurant, your mind will be blown how good meat can taste. Food with lots of spices tends to hide the quality of the raw ingredients, but on their own tofu and meat are no competition in terms of taste.

Animals aren't farmed to make your chicken nuggets. It's a byproduct of using the whole animal, including parts that aren't quality cuts (most of the animal in some cases).

Great! While I do think plant-based diets are at their most delicious and healthy when they don't try to imitate animal products, I think it's a reality that many people (who want to avoid/minimise animal products) don't want to change the type of food they eat, just the components.

I've really been enjoying the Burger King impossible burger - they've much better texture, flavour and juicyness compared to Burger King's beef patties (not a particularly high bar, mind you!). They're definitely at their best prepared with a slice of cheese, though. Perhaps Impossible will tackle that soon...

Edited: to note that I was referring to people who didn't want to eat meat, not the general public

"I think it's a reality that people don't want to change the type of food they eat, just the components."

Why do you think this is true?

Why would people who enjoy a good burger want to change anything about it, and why would someone proclaim that 'most people do want to change it'?

> Why would people who enjoy a good burger want to change anything about it

If you are eating the burger specifically and solely for the beef, perhaps you don't. But for many people "cheeseburger" is a unit of food all on its own and the patty inside is more of a toppings-and-condiments delivery device. So if there's a plant-based substitute that's mildly healthier (Impossible is not a "low calorie, low sodium, low fat" substitute by any means) and a lot better on the environment, I suspect OP is correct. Many people would switch, or at least not mind the switch as much.

Yes, some people would change, there's no doubt.

The point being: why does the author think that 'most' people would feel this way?

Because I suspect that the vast majority of people don't.

My suspicion is that the vast majority of people would view a 'regular burger' as 'more healthy' than most plant-based alternatives (even if they were roughly the same), and that all even if things were 'equal' or even slightly favourable to the veggie burger for 'health', they would prefer meat.

You folks do realize that probably the majority of food in the US is probably unhealthy? And that people aren't really making their choices based on health so much?

I believe that 'people like us' mostly live in bubbles and have a hard time grasping what 'most people' like. Every time I visit my 'very normal' family members I am reminded.

If there is a dramatic difference in price I can see change, but otherwise, people will want their regular burgers.

I would even go a step further: the more 'regular people' can be convinced the meat is 'real' and of 'high quality' - the more they will value it. Not less.

I think the phenomenon you're observing here isn't really to do with health, but more of naturalness - or more specifically, perceived naturalness.

Obviously a hamburger isn't literally natural, but it's made from beef and mostly nothing extra.

An "Impossible Meat" burger was born out of a lab - researched, developed, tested, and finally manufactured. There's nothing "natural" about it, which can turn a lot of people off.

> I've really been enjoying the Burger King impossible burger - they've much better texture, flavour and juicyness compared to Burger King's beef patties

I like the Impossible Whopper as well and I'm more than a little put out that all of the Burger King stores around me are closed to people who do not have a car. Almost all other foodservice places have reopened for walk-up takeaway but the two Burger King places I can easily get to have stubbornly insisted on remaining car-driver-only.

Dayia cheese is in my opinion, superior than cheese in applications such as burgers. However, looking at the ingredients it looks unhealthier gram by gram vs cheese. But if it spares the suffering of one animal I'm all for it.

I've never heard of it before, but having just had a look, it seems like an imitation of the worst kinds of 'cheese'.

I don't doubt it can beat squares of plasticy crap and bags of shredded rubber, but do you think it's superior to actual cheese, that isn't artificially coloured or machined into a weird shape and texture?

Better than gourmet cheese? No. But in certain foods where cheese is not the main ingredient, such as burgers, sandwiches, and pizzas, yes, it can be superior.

I didn't say 'gourmet' though, I just wouldn't personally put one of those rubber squares or anything out of a bag even on a burger, because I think its horrid. I would use real cheese cut from a block that hasn't been coloured some rancid colour, even if cheap decidedly non-gourmet cheese.

This stuff looks like it's modelled off the horrid stuff, rather than imitating anything that I would want to eat, so I just wondered what you were comparing it to in saying it's superior.

I ordered an Impossible Whopper and a regular Whopper a couple months ago to try back to back. I thought they were comparable, if not very similar. I'm sure the toppings help blur the taste line. I don't eat fast food much, but when I'm craving a fast food burger, I have been going for the Impossible Whopper.

Had you never had a beef whopper, do you think you’d feel like you were missing out? As our kids get older, I wonder if I can give them better defaults than we had growing up.

In a vacuum, I don't think so, no more than someone who never had a Wendy's burger because their default was a Big Mac is missing out. It's really just a different default and from a taste or "missing out" perspective is no better or worse. Though in other ways I think the impossible stuff is better objectively and subjectively.

However, in the real world (caveat: I don't have children myself quite yet), I'd personally probably be fairly loose with their defaults, let them try whatever they want, and be a good example myself of eating a mostly vegetarian diet. There will be some social pressure to have eaten a beef hamburger, for example, and I don't want them to feel like they're missing out or feeling self righteous for not having eaten beef. I think the ideal would be that they try beef hamburgers and eat them occasionally, but largely choose not to. Side note: the butcher shop I use does make hamburgers, they're super good and from ethically raised animals so I don't have ethical qualms about getting them, but also wow are they expensive. I want to say $8-10 for a patty.

Great advice, thank you.

I'm not a vegetarian, but also think that killing an animal when there's another option should be avoided -- and when I grill the IB's, they taste just like meat and even pass the 12 yo test. (The key is on the grill - fried up, not as good.) I'd love to see the time when we all eat meat only as a special occasion (<= once every few weeks) and giving thanks and respect to the animal. And the environmental benefits are huge. (Beyond is pretty good too, but not quite as beef-like, esp. if not well-done.) Now if they make a bacon that's just as convincing, I will definitely be celebrating!

There is a startup called Mission barns that aims to make lab grown bacon. I'm not sure how close they are to market but I believe they've done a batch trial.

Somebody brought these burgers to a cookout, and I gotta say, they went faster than the real meat did!

I tried cooking them at home on the stove and it was a disaster, but they were awesome off of the grill.

They definitely need some good sauces to really make the burger, but they texture and taste were both really good.

I really hope they can drive the cost way, way down. If these were side by side on the shelf and priced $2 less than the "real thing", they'd take over a good chunk of the whole market in a very short time.

I imagine meat alternatives will really take off once they are cheaper than meat. There seems to be a lot of potential for cost savings if you don't need to raise a large animal to create the product. So far I haven't seen much of a cost advantage to meatless products, but perhaps with more funding this would be achievable. While I don't thing Impossible tastes better or even as good as the real thing, it isn't too far off. Having a price advantage would tip the scale for many people, especially in the fast food space.

Impossible should lobby for a carbon tax, which would skyrocket the price of meat, making their option more affordable.

Impossible meat production doesn’t use carbon?

Far less than beef: https://impossiblefoods.com/mission/lca-update-2019/

Just to put some numbers on it, the UN has a report that puts the total average carbon emissions of beef production between 14 to 76 kg CO2 equivalent per kg of final product, depending on the region the cattle was raised in[1]. The 2019 RWCC act proposed a tax of $40/metric ton of CO2 equivalent[2]. That corresponds to a price increase of $0.56-3.04/kg or $1.20-6.70/lbs of beef. Right now, the grocery store by me has 100% ground beef at $4/lbs, so it would be an increase of 30%-167%. If we use the US specific emission numbers, it's a ~65% increase for a total of $6.64/lbs. For reference, Impossible's "burger brick" is about $8/lbs[3].

Of course, ranchers would likely adopt more efficient practices if an actual carbon tax was passed so this is probably an upper limit of the price increase in practice.

[1] http://www.fao.org/3/i3461e/i3461e.pdf

[2] https://www.fcnl.org/documents/1066

[3] https://impossiblefoods.com/directpricelist/

We should distinguish between beef and pork/chickens from meat.

Recommended short story Food of the Gods -Arthur C. Clarke

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=hbAqAAAAQBAJ&lpg=PT75&o...

Highly recommended reading is Sacred Cow book. It’s the most well researched, fact based, science based book thus far that is pro meat.

https://www.sacredcow.info/

Impossible ingredients are pretty bad and aren’t that good for the environment either. Soy production is extremely destructive.

Here’s the list: Water, Soy Protein Concentrate, Coconut Oil, Sunflower Oil, Natural Flavors, 2% Or Less Of: Potato Protein, Methylcellulose, Yeast Extract, Cultured Dextrose, Food Starch Modified, Soy Leghemoglobin, Salt, Mixed Tocopherols (Antioxidant), Soy Protein Isolate, Vitamins and Minerals (Zinc Gluconate, Thiamine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B1), Niacin, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Vitamin B12).

What's bad about these ingredients?

Do you have a good source on why soy production is harmful? I think the idea is that it's not AS harmful. Regardless of the land damage that soy production takes it's not as bad as the land needed for animals & the food to feed those animals.

Side benefit: also factory farms can totally be a source of another fucked up disease. They pump those animals with antibiotics and put them in bad environments a lot of the time.

Too right, soy never caused a pandemic...

The vast majority of soy production is for animal feed. By diverting that directly to feeding people, you eliminate an entire trophic level.

Edit: Failed to mention that a lot of deforestation is done to facilitate the growth of soy. Take for example the Amazon.

Yeah, and we shouldn’t feed animals soy. I’m for that 100%. So we should fight for that. If everyone stops eating meat and starts eating soy we won’t be growing much less of it. We just transfer the problem from one place to another.

Not if you remove the inefficient conversion in the middle. The whole argument is, cattle is inefficient conversion of plant based sources into meat.[1] If instead, we just eat the plant based sources, we would need to grow less of them. Also, we don't really need to restrict ourselves to soy, there are other plant based foods to eat. There are cultures which are dominated by vegetarian food, so we don't even have a lack of recipes to cook.

[1] can be biased: https://impossiblefoods.com/mission/lca-update-2019/

* Entire forests are cleared to grow soy. Animals living in those forests die or migrate and then die from hunger from lack of resources.

* Commercial, at-scale plantations kill a huge number of insects, and animals, like rodents and field mice by pesticide use and by machinery during harvests.

* Commercial farming pollutes the rivers and water table, because of the run offs of pesticides. Which makes animals sick (people are a subset of animals here).

On the other hand, meat production does not need to be harmful at all, and in fact, can have the opposite effect of healing the land.

Look at Joel Salatin's farms. He is the model for proper meat production and has been featured in countless docs and books. His farms are fully integrated with nature. Yes the product costs more, but that is a feature, not a bug. The product is of much higher quality, and you need less of it to get the same benefits as you would from factory-farming raised meat. Because it is more expensive people will naturally eat less of it, which is ok and is also a feature.

The problem is that American government was subsidizing terrible farming practices for a very long time and all food became too cheap. Everything is raised and produced with shortcuts and external costs that are not accounted for. That is the root cause of all issues.

Switching from meat to soy will not fix the problem, because soy is and will be subsidized even more, if there is more demand for it. The soy industry will get stronger and lobby for more subsidies and they'll get them, like they get them for everything else.

And yes, factory farms need to go! It is way too centralized and is actually a danger to society in many ways. Farms need to be decentralized and operated by a higher number of smaller operators. The economy of farming will be healthier and more diverse overall.

Most cows are not grass-fed (too expensive, too much land required) and are therefore in cages being fed... soy based products.

It is true that most cows aren’t grass fed. But that’s what we need to focus on. And not focusing on eating soy. Let’s fix the commercial animal husbandry to do it properly without shortcuts. Sure the meat will be more expensive but then naturally people will eat less of it.

I feel like this level of funding and therefore expected future worth is only possible if laws were passed to limit proper meat cultivation..

I have never so far felt the urge to pay more for non-beef, beef.

The interesting thing about the alternative meat industry isn't where the meat puck is, but where it's going (if you'll pardon the pun).

Making soybeans taste like a supermarket hamburger almost certainly uses a very similar organizational skillset as making soybeans taste like, say, a Kobe beef burger - or some other meat option that's currently default-expensive. So the thesis is likely that their intellectual capital is now mature enough that they can iterate their way up the price / quality spectrum to win meaningful market segments.

My guess is Impossible's valuation is probably justified, even if the investor story is a disjunction of "scale will eventually bring prices to parity or better with most real meat options" and "R&D will eventually produce flavor / texture profiles that transcend those of most real meat options". People eat a heck of a lot of meat, in a heck of a lot of varieties. And of course, the folks who invested will have gotten a look at the non-public numbers too.

Are there any variants of plant based products which could compare to extremely high protein/calorie ratio foods, foods like egg white and chicken breast.

The ones I have eaten/seen till now seem quite bad if you look at the overall composition. Sure, they have decent amount of protein from the legume they come from but the overall composition is not good. There are certain variants of Tofu with low fat/carb count but I don't know of any other besides supplements.

Gluten-based food? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_gluten_(food)

Edit: judging from this food nutrition label, the protein/calorie ratio is quite extreme...[0]

[0]: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61D08CfuRzL...

Thanks, I just searched for that. Those are some extreme numbers[1] and there seem to be a lot of dishes in East Asia that are making use of it, not sure if the use is just as an additive.

I wonder why it doesn't come up a lot in protein rich food discussion. I will try to read up more about it.

[1] https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/168147/n...

Just for some additional search terms, seitan is a form of prepared Vital Wheat Gluten.

I'm surprised their valuation didn't go up very much. $3.61B -> $4.03B.

A hedge fund was involved, maybe this is a preparation for an IPO? Get some institutional public investors on board?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs-gocza6t8

Why not just eat the soy beans directly? This stuff is just glorified processed food.

Probably because a hamburger is tasty?

It's an open secret things like "Impossible Meat" and others are really not healthy for you - certainly not a healthier alternative than just eating beef. They are higher in calories, and contain a lot more oils.

Instead, it's for people who wish not to eat meat for whatever reasons (personal choice, religion, etc)... and now they can have a tasty alternative at the next Backyard BBQ.

Cost. As soon as this is materially cheaper than meat it will become the 'filler' used on so many burgers, taco places etc. and they'll do it without telling customers. Then so many people who would otherwise 'not like this stuff' have to internalize the fact 'they are already eating it widespread'. And even more directly, 40% of consumers are extremely price sensitive (think dollar store) and will buy the cheapest thing making 'real meat' a luxury.

I'm not against meat but I do view 'vegetarian strategic path to meat elimination' as entirely economic.

People care more about their money than anything that's how it will happen in my view.

That said - if it tasted 'really good' I don't mind at all now and again personally and I feel probably most people feel that way as well. If I had burgers once every two weeks and 1/3 of them were 'good vegan' I would fall into just considering it 'another choice in the menu' type of thing, which I believe a lot of folks will go for.

I agree that's the only realistic way it will replace meat in the short-medium term. Besides - replacing the garbage-level-meat (your average cheap hamburger, sausage, nuggets, etc.) that provides most of meat-based calories to the masses with this would be better for everyone and then you can still have your grass-fed steaks and such every now and then without having millions of cows polluting the place.

> As soon as this is materially cheaper than meat it will become the 'filler' used on so many burgers, taco places etc. and they'll do it without telling customers.

This already exists. Tofu is commonly used in fast food as a meat "filler", and very few people notice as it is. Tacos at Jack in the Box "May Contain Soy Products", and more.

Making "Impossible Meat" is always going to be more expensive than Tofu fillers, simply because it's processed to a much higher degree and requires a lot of ingredients.

They have lower cholesterol than regular meat and are lower in nitrates, and consumption of those is associated with behavioral issues.

But yeah the macro-nutrient composition of this meat substitute patties is as unhealthy as meat as they are very high in fat. The sodium content is also really high so they don't help with high blood pressure issues.

Why not just troll individual people directly rather than general trolling? You might enjoy it more.

I do. It's how I maximize my gains after a workout.

IB's are soy free

Literally the second ingredient:

  Water, Soy Protein Concentrate, Coconut Oil, Sunflower Oil, Natural Flavors, 2% Or Less Of: Potato Protein, Methylcellulose, Yeast Extract, Cultured Dextrose, Food Starch Modified, Soy Leghemoglobin, Salt, Mixed Tocopherols (Antioxidant), Soy Protein Isolate, Vitamins and Minerals (Zinc Gluconate, Thiamine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B1), Niacin, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Vitamin B12).

And the first is water, so as a practical matter soy is the biggest single ingredient.

You're probably thinking of Beyond Meat, which uses pea protein.

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