Impossible Foods is on the cusp of big things. But as the company lines up its first burger chain, it still needs to show it can convert the meat-loving masses

I sat down to have my first Impossible Burger, the plant-based meat substitute that has received a lot of press and nice reviews from high profile chefs and their customers. My burger, topped with caramelized onion, dill pickles, lettuce and a special sauce, was cooked medium rare. It looked like a conventional burger, complete with the pinkish ‘meat’ in the middle. It was hard to tell the difference when I bit into the burger and washed it down with a milkshake.

I was at Bareburger near New York University yesterday to hear executives from Impossible Foods announcing their first restaurant chain. It’s a big deal for the Silicon Valley company, which only launched its first product, the Impossible Burger, last year and focused its initial publicity blitz around teaming up with trendy restaurants in New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

I didn’t try the burger only for its novelty. I wanted to know how the Silicon Valley company will grow and reach its social mission: convincing meat lovers that they can ditch carbon-intensive meat without giving up their favorite comfort foods. Certainly, no companies that make imitation meat so far have succeeded.

There’s no shortage of research and media coverage warning the public of the environmental danger of producing and eating meat, from the amount of water and energy needed to the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. But don’t think all the scary statistics will make vegetarians out of the masses. Thanks to cheaper production costs, beef consumption is forecast to grow 11.7% and pork 10.3% from 2016 to 2025 nationwide, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

Impossible Foods has raised $182m since its 2011 inception. Its investors include Khosla Ventures, Google Ventures and Bill Gates. Some of the $108m it raised in 2015 is going into a new factory in Oakland, California, that the company plans to open later this month.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Impossible Foods launched its first product, the Impossible Burger, last year and focused its initial publicity blitz around teaming up with trendy restaurants in New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Photograph: Evan Sung/Impossible Foods

Running this factory well will be crucial for the company’s success, including making its burgers more affordable. Ramping up production smoothly and troubleshooting glitches quickly have bedeviled startups in all sorts of businesses. Up until now, Impossible Foods has been churning out its meat substitute in small batches at its headquarters and at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

The limited production makes it difficult for Impossible Foods to grow, and company officials repeatedly said the problem they face is supply, not demand. New York-based Bareburger, with 43 locations, plans to serve a $13.95 Impossible Burger at one restaurant for now.

My lunch mates at the table at Bareburger included the Impossible Foods chief operating officer and chief financial officer, David Lee. I asked Lee about the company’s current production volume, or what it will be able to produce at the new factory, which should start cranking out burgers this summer. He wouldn’t say.

Impossible Foods has chatted with giant burger chains such as McDonald’s, but the company wouldn’t be able to supply a customer base of that size unless it can produce products in high volumes consistently. A company such as McDonald’s also would prefer not to rely on just one supplier. Impossible Foods has ample competitors, including Beyond Meat, which started selling its plant-based Beyond Burger at a Whole Foods in Colorado last year.

Impossible Foods is sourcing most of its ingredients from within the US, though Lee declined to disclose which ones are imports. Its burger’s chief components are potato and wheat proteins, coconut oil, Japanese yam, sugar, xanthan gum, amino acids and a soy-based protein called leghemoglobin.

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That last protein is the key to making the burger taste – and bleed – like real meat. Creating a source of the protein was a big technical challenge for Impossible Foods. The company, headed by a former biochemistry professor from Stanford University, Patrick Brown, inserted the protein’s DNA into a standard yeast. The company grows and then ferments the yeast to extract the protein.

The company is developing its technology to be able to create other types of imitation meat, including pork, chicken and fish, Lee said. It’s certainly interested in expanding globally – Lee pointed to the huge pork market in China, which holds a strategic pork stockpile so that it can control the meat’s pricing and avoid public outrage.

It’s encouraging to see companies like Impossible Foods making progress and creating more conversations about the environmental impact of our meat-loving habit. The company is reaching a tipping point but will need more than one burger chain to take on the meat industry.