Impossible Foods develops, manufacturers and markets plant based “meat” analogue products that feature a key ingredient produced using microbial engineering and cellular fermentation. The key ingredient in Impossible Foods products is soy leghemoglobin, a type of heme protein that is incorporated into a variety of plant based meat analogue products such as burgers and sausage crumbles and provides the plant products with meat flavor and makes the plant meat “bleed.”

The heme is made from soy leghemoglobin produced by Pichia pastoris strain MXY0291 engineered specifically to optimize production of soy leghemoglobin by increasing the intracellular concentration of heme. The soy leghemoglobin protein is used at a level up to 0.8% in Impossible meat analogue products. Impossible Foods’ soy leghemoglobin protein contains a mixture of soy leghemoglobin protein, P. pastoris proteins, sodium chloride, and sodium ascorbate. The P. pastoris production strain undergoes fermentation, cell lysis, solid separation, concentration and freezing prior to being added to form meat analogues.

Impossible Foods products have received tremendous acceptance since the 2016 debut at famed chef David Cheng’s Momofuku Nishi restaurant. Since 2016, Impossible has expanded to over 15,000 high end and fast food restaurants globally including Starbucks, Burger King, Qdoba, White Castle, Red Robin to name a few. In 2020 Impossible launched in grocery stores in select locations across the U.S. including Albertsons, Vons, Safeway, Wegmans, and Krogers.