In a new sustainability report , Impossible Foods quantifies just how much the company’s eco-friendly products are an improvement over your run-of-the-mill hamburger. And with a new production facility slated to crank out 1 million+ plant-based burgers a month, the company is poised to bring its promise of sustainable protein production to the broader market.

Before diving into Impossible’s stats, it’s worth taking a moment to look at that standard hamburger as a point of comparison. Today’s beef industry is so unsustainable it’s mind-boggling. About 75 percent of all agricultural land in the U.S. is used to raise, graze, of grow crops to feed cows. In turn, these cows are then killed to produce the 10 billion pounds of ground beef Americans consume every year.

Here’s a comparison of what it takes to create a quarter pound of beef produced in this traditional system versus producing the meat directly from plants, as Impossible’s tech allows:





As the report states:





We want to replace a prehistoric means of food production with one that can sustainably feed 10 billion people by 2050. Bypassing animals and going directly from plants to plate is a more efficient conversion of calories and protein.

Replacing animals as a food production technology will not just slow the rate of biodiversity loss; it will create the possibility of actively reversing those losses. We envision a world with more physical space for wild things and natural spaces, with cleaner air and water security— a world in which nature maintains the earth’s balance simply and effectively.





We have to high five CEO Pat Brown and his team: They’re really putting this mission into action.









To learn more about The Good Food Institute's work to support the innovators who are bringing plant-based meat into the mainstream, check out what we do!









Impossible Foods: The company that has the hard data to prove they are neither myth, nor legend.