Impossible Burger May Come To Local Markets

REDWOOD CITY, CA — In what seemed like an impossible task for a veggie burger, Impossible Foods received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to use a color additive called heme that gives its flagship burger the iron-based look, taste and craving of its meat counterpart.

A major milestone, the FDA change in rules due Sept. 4 paves the way for the Redwood City food distributor to sell its immensely popular Impossible Burger to grocery stores, adding to the 10,000 eateries selling it throughout the United States and Asia.

To help with this expansion, the Silicon Valley startup is partnering with OSI, an Aurora, Ill.-based global food supplier, the company announced.

Impossible Foods makes meat from plants — with a small fraction of the environmental footprint of meat from animals, the Silicon Valley company said.

The latest allowance by the FDA to use soy leghemoglobin that contains a meat-lover's heme ups the ante on the highly coveted plant-based market with rivals such as Beyond Meat.

The company’s first product, the Impossible Burger, debuted in 2016 and started selling in 7,300 Burger Kings at the end of 2018.

In July 2018, Impossible Foods received a no-questions letter from the FDA, which agreed with the unanimous conclusion of a panel of food-safety experts that its key ingredient -- soy leghemoglobin -- is safe to eat.

Soy leghemoglobin is a protein that carries heme, an iron-containing molecule essential for life that occurs naturally in every animal and plant. Impossible Foods’ scientists discovered that heme is the magic ingredient that makes meat taste like meat and enables the Impossible Burger to satisfy meat lovers’ cravings.

Impossible Burger Chief Executive Officer and Founder Pat Brown refers to heme as "essential for pretty much life on Earth" and "is what makes meat taste so delicious."

It's all a matter of personal preference to presidents of the American Vegan Society and Sacramento chapter of the Vegetarian Society.

"If (the burger) is generally from a plant source as I understand that it is, than it's acceptable," vegan Freya Dinshah said from her New Jersey office. Dinshah, 59, grew up a vegetarian then converted to veganism at age 18. She hasn't tried the burger yet but has heard a mixed reaction from other vegans. For some, if the burger is too successful at "resembling" meat, vegans who have been carnivores in the past may find it "repugnant."

"But they're trying to win over meat eaters," she said.

Hence the expansion.

Vegetarian Glen Desatte of Sacramento insisted that as a general rule he doesn't eat "fake" products and avoids meat substitutes. As an individual, he lives by the "Omnivores Dilemma" mantra: "'If your grandmother doesn't know about it, you probably shouldn't eat it.' And 'If there are more than five ingredients, you should avoid it,'" he said of Michael Pollan's book published in 2006.

Still, he plans on jumping on the Impossible Burger bandwagon to at least try one.

He won't be alone in the food craze. U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue toured the Saginaw Drive plant making the burgers and tried a sampling himself last month .

Before issuing its July 2018 no-questions letter, the FDA reviewed comprehensive test data about soy leghemoglobin to assess its status as “generally recognized as safe,” or GRAS. As a standard process, the FDA posted Impossible Foods' full 1,066-page report on its website for public review. FDA researchers also reviewed the evaluations of top food safety experts, who unanimously concluded multiple times that soy leghemoglobin is safe to eat and compliant with all federal food-safety regulations.

Impossible Foods submitted a color additive petition to FDA to ensure maximum flexibility as its products and business continue to evolve. The FDA accepted that submission in early November 2018.

“We are in the midst of a revolution in food technology that in the next 10 years will likely lead to more innovations in food and ingredient production than there have been in the past half century. As these new products and ingredient sources come to the market, the FDA has a responsibility to provide the appropriate regulatory oversight to protect public health by ensuring that these new foods and food ingredients are safe,” said Dennis Keefe, director of the Office of Food Additive Safety in the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.

The ruling allows for "uncooked beef analogue products sold directly to consumers such as in food retail settings,” Keefe summarized.

In establishing the ruling, the FDA is amending the color additive regulations to provide for the safe use of soy leghemoglobin and adding it to the archives of the Federal Registry. Upon publication of the final rule, the color additive petition process allows for a 30-day period to file objections by any person adversely affected. Should no objections be raised, the direct-to-consumer sale of uncooked, red-colored ground beef analogue products containing soy leghemoglobin will be allowed.

“We’ve been engaging with the FDA for half a decade to ensure that we are completely compliant with all food-safety regulations—for the Impossible Burger and for future products and sales channels,” Impossible Foods Chief Legal Officer Dana Wagner said. “We have deep respect for the FDA as champion of U.S. food safety, and we’ve always gone above and beyond to comply with every food-safety regulation and to provide maximum transparency about our ingredients so that our customers can have 100 percent confidence in our product.”

The privately held company was founded in 2011 by Brown, who majored in biochemistry at Stanford University and a former Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. Investors include Khosla Ventures, Bill Gates, Google Ventures, Horizons Ventures, UBS, Viking Global Investors, Temasek, Sailing Capital and the Open Philanthropy Project.

See also

• Impossible Foods Makes Beef-Like Veggie Burgers Possible