Month: April 2019

The founder of plant-based meat company Impossible Foods Inc., Prof. Pat Brown, is a 64-year old who stands out among that many young founders of billion-dollar start-ups in Silicon Valley, California, US.

What he lacks in youth, he makes it up for an ambition. Instead of just changing the world, Prof. Brown intends to save it. Recently a deal announced between Impossible Foods and Burger King is a step toward achieving his goal of reducing the carbon emissions generated by the meat industry.

An article by Emiko Terazono and Tim Bradshaw in Financial Times on 6^th, April, 2019 traced the achievements of Prof. Brown.

Prof. Brown is known in the scientific community for his research in genetics and microbiology, including defining the mechanism by which the HIV virus infects cells. After taking a sabbatical from the role as a professor at Stanford University in 2010, he wanted to find a global issue he could make a real difference. He concluded that finding the causes of cancer or Alzheimer’s were secondary to the environmental damage caused by eating meat and dairy.

“Nothing comes remotely close to the catastrophic environmental impact of the livestock industry,” he said. From greenhouse gases emission to the negative effects on land and water, he is convinced that humans are racing to ecological disaster unless meat and dairy consumption is cut or eliminated. He realized that instead of preaching a shift in eating habits, or lobbying to change regulations, offering consumers tasty alternatives proteins was how to trigger change.

A marathon-running vegan, he has not eaten meat for five decades or dairy for 15 years. “If you can figure out what makes meat delicious — you save the planet from our environmental catastrophe,” said Prof Brown.

With the backing of Silicon Valley investor Khosla Ventures, he launched Impossible Foods Inc. in 2011, putting together a team that included molecular biochemists, chemists and data scientists to produce plant-based meat from a molecular level.

Mr. Samir Kaul, a founding partner at Khosla Ventures with a background in genomics who looked up to Prof. Brown in his days as a scientist, said it was an easy decision to back him.

“He has a history of taking on a big challenge and, frankly, winning.”

Impossible Foods discovered that heme, an iron-containing protein molecule present in plants and animals, was the ingredient giving meat its aroma, taste and texture. Produced through genetic engineering and yeast fermentation, it is also behind the juices that make the Impossible Foods’s burger bleed.

In 2016, it introduced a burger made of wheat and potato  protein, coconut oil, and heme. It looked, tasted, smelt and sizzled like a real meat burger.

Even before Impossible Foods launched a product, Prof. Brown turned down an offer with hundreds of millions of dollars for the company from Google in 2015.”For Prof. Brown possibly, his reason to do this is not to get rich. For Pat, it’s to make the world a better place, “ said Mr Kaul.

This year the group has introduced a new burger after swapping wheat for soyabeans and using less salt. After signing its distribution deal with Burger King, it is fundraising to increase the capacity of its production facility in Oakland, California, US.

Along with rival Beyond Meat, which is preparing to float its shares in the US, Impossible Foods has sought to lure meat-eating consumers who want to reduce intake of meat or looking for tasty options, casting the net wide than vegans.

Prof. Brown’s pronouncement that he is not bothered about exits have been perceived as arrogance by some venture capitalists. But he has raised more than US$475 million since 20111 and drawn plenty of backers, including Bill Gates and others. Bruce Friedrich, who launched the Good Food Institute, a US not-for-profit that promotes alternative proteins and advice start-ups, calls Prof. Brown “a prophet” and praises his “infectious optimism”.

It has not all been plain sailing. Impossible Foods reduce its salt content of its burger after campaigners criticised it for having too much. It had to wait several years before the US FDA last year acknowledged that heme was “generally recognized as safe”. It defended the testing of its products on rats after criticisms from animal rights group Peta.

Impossible Foods produces soy leghemoglobin by genetically modifying yeast and using fermentation. The ingredient is key because it carries heme, an iron-rich molecule found in real meat. The heme in the Impossible Burger is atom-for-atom identical to the heme found in meat, fish, plants and other foods.

If the Impossible burger is successful, Prof. Brown hopes to eliminate animal meat in the food chain by 2035, helping the earth restores its vegetation cover.

“Half of the earth’s land has been significantly and destructively disrupted by animal agriculture, “ he said. “So the replacement of that industry with a tiny fraction of the land and environmental impact and resulting recovery of the ecosystems will be visible from outer space, ” he said.

In the Lex Column of the Financial Times on 3^rd, April 2019, we noted an interesting article. It highlighted that growing numbers of vegetarians mean big food groups are keen to invest in plant-based substitutes for meat. Start-ups are ahead in the race to produce alternatives that look and taste like the real meat stuff. Thus, a major market may develop.

Veganism was once a fringe movement. Now, it is becoming mainstream. US sales of plant-based food was growing 10 times faster than the rest, according to research group Nielsen.

As consumers reduce their meat intake,  manufacturers are racing to exploit the trend. In other words, interest in plant-based burgers is sizzling hot!

Same old-style veggie burgers would be beaten in a taste test by the cartons in which they came. The latest version sizzle and “bleed” like real meat, manufacturers claim. In the food industry hype is a vital ingredient. Nestle, the Swiss food giant, calls its new soy protein-based patty “incredible burger”. It has launched recently, soon after news that Impossible Foods of the US had struck a deal with the large fast food chain Burger King.

The battle of the plant-based burger will be had fought. Unilever, which recently bought meat-substitute company The Vegetarian Butcher, had joined the fray. This company was mentioned in our previous blog.

California-based Beyond Meat, also mentioned in a previous blog, is another contender. It is preparing for an IPO as it seeks to expand its market territory. Competition will reduce industry profits.

For now, affluent consumers are expected to pay up. Smaller, rich households are the top buyers of plant-based burgers, says research group NPD. Impossible Whopper will cost about a US$ more than its beef counterpart.

Food groups are looking beyond committed dead-cow dodgers for growth. Just 5 per cent of Americans say they are vegetarians and 3 per cent are vegans. Many consumers, though, are cutting down on meat consumption. Health is the main reason, says Mintel, a market research company. Americans say they like the taste of the plant-based burger. Environmental worries also feature. Meat and dairy provide about 18 per cent of calories but uses 83 per cent of farmland and produces 60 per cent of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emission, a science paper said last year.

Leonardo DiCaprio, an investor in Beyond Meat, is one of the major celebrities who endorse the eco-credentials of meat substitute. Alternative meat is fashionable, virtue-signalling and tasty. No wonder the food industry want to take a bite, the Lex Column concluded.

Back to Impossible Whopper

The Burger King restaurant in Missouri, US, is testing the plant-based burger at 50 outlets. The plant-based burger will be supplied by Impossible Foods. As a result of this deal, the company is looking to raise fresh funding to increase its production capacity. Impossible Foods has already raised more than US$475 million since it was founded in 2011.

Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat have created plant-based products based on molecular science, where cells are created to mimic that of animal protein. Both pride themselves on offering burgers that aim for the same mouth feel as those made from beef. Both products “bleed” like meat, with Impossible Foods using “heme” – a protein created by its scientists through genetic engineering and yeast fermentation, while Beyond Meat uses beet juice.

The Impossible Whopper has the same ingredient as the company’s version of its burger, which now uses soyabeans instead of wheat. The diameter has been adjusted so that it fits in the Burger King bun.

Dato’ Anuar Md Nor’s Comment

We have not been visiting fast food outlets for the last three month to reduce meat consumption. When the Impossible Whopper is offered in Burger King restaurants in Malaysia, we could be enticed to visit its outlet again. We are sure McDonalds is watching!