Health regulators have cleared the way for Impossible Foods products such as the Impossible Burger to be sold in Canada, the Toronto Star has learned, setting up a two-way battle for the burgeoning plant-based meat alternative market that has so far been dominated by rival Beyond Meat.

In a letter to Impossible Foods Inc. dated Jan. 6, Health Canada confirmed it has no objections to an application by the Silicon Valley-based company to sell its meatless patties here.

Los Angeles-based Beyond Meat has been operating in Canada since 2018, when it began distributing its Beyond Burger — whose main ingredient is pea protein — through the A&W fast-food chain. The company has since expanded toward ubiquity via similar deals and tests with Tim Hortons, Subway and McDonald’s, among others, as well as grocery chains including Loblaws and Metro.

The Impossible Burger, meanwhile, had been facing stricter regulatory scrutiny because it uses soy leghemoglobin (LegH) as a key ingredient in replicating the taste and texture of meat.

“LegH is a novel food because it has not been used as a food before. It comes from the root of the soya plant, which is not the part of the plant typically consumed,” Health Canada spokesperson Maryse Durette said in an email.

“The department was satisfied that the data provided by Impossible Foods Inc. supports the safety of LegH and its use in plant-based patties.”

While the runway is now clear, Impossible Foods is not yet revealing its expansion plans. The company currently sells burgers in the United States, Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore.

In the United States, the company has been battling Beyond in a land grab of sorts. Its patties are available through a number of fast-food and fast-casual chains, including Burger King, White Castle, Hard Rock Cafe and Cheesecake Factory, and in several grocery chains.

“Impossible Foods intends to eliminate the need for animal agriculture in the global food chain and that means being in every region in the world, including Canada,” spokesperson Esther Cohn said in an email. “We aren’t releasing additional details about our Canadian launch schedule at this time, but stay tuned.”

In July, investment firm UBS predicted the global plant-based protein market would balloon to $85 billion (U.S.) by 2030, from $4.6 billion in 2018, as more consumers shift to diets that are believed to be more ethical and environmentally friendly.

Industry watchers therefore don’t expect Impossible Foods to wait much longer before moving into Canada, given the size of the market at stake and Beyond Meat’s lead here.

“Beyond has made real headway in Canada,” said Lisa Kramer, a professor of finance at the Rotman School of Management. “Impossible will be in catch-up mode, but there is room for both.”

Impossible Foods’ expansion could be hobbled by production capabilities. Earlier this month, Reuters reported that the company was backing off trying to win a deal with McDonald’s, quoting chief executive Pat Brown as saying, “it would be stupid for us to be vying for them right now ... Having more big customers right now doesn’t do us any good until we scale up production.”

Brown denied the report shortly after, telling Business Insider his company was indeed still pursuing a deal with McDonald’s. The fast-food behemoth is currently testing Beyond’s PLT burger in 52 restaurants in Southwestern Ontario.

Impossible Foods also unveiled a new pork product at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month, with Burger King restaurants in several U.S. markets set to test the Impossible Croissan’wich later in January.

Despite green lights from health regulators in both Canada and the United States, some industry observers aren’t convinced that Impossible’s LegH has been proven safe for human consumption.

Citing its own food safety scientists, non-profit organization Consumer Reports last year published an article questioning the research supplied by Impossible Foods to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“Nobody has ever eaten this compound. There are no long-term studies on people,” said Patricia Calvo, health writer at Consumer Reports, in an interview. “It may very well be safe, but we just don’t know that.”

The company fired back in a blog post, calling the article’s comments and experts “farcical” and “maliciously false.”

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Either way, Kramer believes the meatless movement is a permanent consumption shift, rather than a trend that might soon fade out.

“Consumers are very, very aware of the implications of their dietary choices, whether that’s the ethical treatment of animals or the environmental footprint of what they’re eating,” she says.

“These companies are addressing a lot of those points.”

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