REDWOOD CITY, Calif.– Impossible Foods’ award-winning, plant-based Impossible Burger is now available in more than 11,000 supermarkets and grocery stores across all 50 states.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Impossible Burger was available in fewer than 150 grocery stores. In the past six months, the food tech startup’s retail footprint has increased 77-fold.
Shoppers can buy Impossible Burger at Walmart, the world’s largest retailer; Kroger, the nation’s largest grocery chain; as well as Albertsons, Fred Meyer, Gelson’s, Safeway, Smith’s, Target, Trader Joe’s, Vons, Wegmans and many others. Starting this month, Impossible Burger is rolling out at nearly 1,500 Target stores nationwide. For the nearest location, check out Impossible Foods’ locator map.
Impossible Foods is one of America’s fastest-growing brands and the leading driver of growth in the overall plant-based food category. Nine out of 10 people who buy Impossible Burger regularly eat animal-derived foods. According to data from consumer insights company Numerator, the vast majority of Impossible Burger sales come at the expense of animal-derived meat.
“Three out of four Americans now live within 10 miles of a grocery store where they can buy Impossible Burger. And when people cook it at home, they start telling friends and family about it,” said Impossible Foods’ Senior Vice President for Sales Dan Greene. “Our retail surge has become a powerful flywheel for long-term growth.”
Rocketing retail
Named top plant-based burger by the New York Times and a favorite of Cook’s Illustrated, Impossible Burger rivals ground beef from cows for taste. It contains no animal hormones or antibiotics, and is kosher, halal and gluten-free certified. It’s nutritious and versatile in all ground meat recipes, including stews, chili, sauces, braises, minces, meatballs, meat pies or any other beefy menu item.
Impossible Burger made its grocery store debut in September 2019, when it immediately rocketed to the No. 1 item sold on the East and West coasts at some of America’s favorite grocery stores, outselling all ground beef from cows at many grocery stores. At one grocery store in Southern California, Impossible Burger outsold all brands of ground beef from cows — and it outsold the next most popular single product by 6X.
Impossible Foods’ retail growth comes particularly from Americans trying Impossible Burger for the first time; the percentage of first-time customers has doubled each month since April. Nine out of 10 customers who buy Impossible Burger in grocery stores say they are satisfied with the product; most plan to buy it again, according to an Impossible Foods survey of customers.
According to Chicago-based analytics company Numerator, the vast majority of Impossible Foods’ sales over the most recent 13-week period come at the expense of animal-derived meat. In addition:
- 21 cents for every dollar spent on Impossible Burger at brick-and-mortar grocery stores is incremental to the entire meat category (which includes plant- and animal-based meat) — in other words, Impossible Burger gets consumers to spend 21% more on all categories of meat;
- 78 cents per dollar comes from consumers who are shifting their purchases to Impossible Burger from other categories of plant- and animal-based meat;
- Within the latter category, 92% of Impossible Burger sales come directly at the expense of animal-derived meats — proof that Impossible Burger is displacing animal-derived foods for 72% of total purchases.
Delicious, nutritious, sustainable
Impossible Burger is the flagship product from Impossible Foods, Inc. Magazine’s company of the year and one of Time Magazine’s 50 Genius companies. The company’s mission is to halt biodiversity collapse and reverse global warming by eliminating the need for animal agriculture, which has led our planet to the brink of environmental collapse.
The California-based startup makes delicious, wholesome, plant-based foods that deliver all the pleasures and nutritional benefits that consumers demand. A 4-ounce serving of Impossible Burger contains 19 g of protein and is an excellent source of iron — and it has 0 mg cholesterol, 14 g of total fat, 8 g of saturated fat and 240 calories. (A conventional 4-ounce “80/20” patty from cows has 80 mg cholesterol, 23 g of total fat, 9 g of saturated fat and 290 calories.)
Impossible Burger uses 96% less land, 87% less water and 89% fewer greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional beef from cows. Home chefs can also log into Impossible Foods’ Impact Calculator to learn exactly how much land, water and emissions they’ve saved by using Impossible Burger instead of ground beef from cows.
About Impossible Foods:
Based in California’s Silicon Valley, Impossible Foods makes delicious, nutritious meat and dairy products from plants — with a much smaller environmental footprint than meat from animals. The privately held food tech startup was founded in 2011 by Patrick O. Brown, M.D., Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry at Stanford University and a former Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. Investors include Coatue, Bill Gates, Google Ventures, Horizons Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Mirae Asset Global Investments, Open Philanthropy Project, Sailing Capital, Temasek, UBS, and Viking Global Investors.
Impossible Foods was Inc. Magazine’s company of the year and one of Time Magazine’s 50 Genius companies. The flagship product, Impossible Burger, was named top plant-based burger by the New York Times and received the Food and Beverage (FABI) Award from the National Restaurant Association.
