Impossible Foods Launches Video Love Letter to Planet Earth
Impossible Foods, the brand behind the popular bleeding plant-based Impossible Burger, has launched a short video in tribute to the planet. The film’s premiere in New York on August 8 coincides with the release of the company’s annual impact report.
The short film follows an astronaut upon his return to Earth and charts his rediscovery of the beauty of the planet.
“The short is a love story about the greatest planet in the universe, and reflects Impossible Foods’ mission to fight for our planet by finding better, more sustainable ways to feed ourselves,” explains the company.
The film, notes Impossible Foods’ Executive Creative Director Sasha Markova, was created with the goal of highlighting the brand’s overarching mission.
“Most customers,” she notes, “know us as Impossible Burger – and not Impossible Foods.”
The film’s choice of focusing more on the brand mission than the product was an admittedly bold one.
“We purposefully didn’t include the product in the film and that was a very strong ask from our CEO, Pat Brown,” she says. “I think he’s probably one of the first CEOs to say ‘don’t put the product in the film!’”
The impact report, also released August 8, is an annual update on the startup’s sustainability mission and vision of replacing 100 percent of ground beef around the world with its plant-based substitute by 2035.
The report, which was generated in cooperation with researchers at the Technical University of Denmark, shows that if Americans replaced only half of their ground beef with Impossible Foods’ plant-based beef substitute, the atmosphere would be spared as many as 45 million metric tons of carbon, “the equivalent,” according to Impossible Foods, “of removing the emissions of up to 11 million drivers in the United States for a full year.”
This transition would also save 3.2 trillion gallons of water and release up to 190,000 square kilometers of land currently used for livestock production (an area equivalent to the size of New England), according to the report.
Impossible Foods makes meat directly from plants by genetically engineering and fermenting yeast to produce soy leghemoglobin, a plant-based heme. Heme is naturally found in hemoglobin and thus in meat, lending it its red color.
“Until today, the only technology we’ve known that can turn plants into meat has been animals – but cows, pigs, chicken and fish are terribly inefficient at turning plants into meat,” Brown says. “We now know how to make meat better – by making it directly from plants.”
“Eliminating the need for animals in the food system is the easiest path to preserve our planet – without compromising quality of life,” he continues.
Since its 2016 launch, Impossible Foods’ Impossible Burger has become available in more than 3,000 restaurants across the country and in Asia. Producing the Impossible Burger uses 75% less water, emits 87% fewer greenhouse gases and requires 95% less land than producing conventional ground beef.
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