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The plant-based burger that 'bleeds' like rare beef

It bleeds on the plate like a rare-cooked beef burger, tastes like a patty of ground beef but is produced with a mere sliver of the resources used to produce cow-based meat. It's the Impossible burger and it makes its chain debut today.

March 2, 2017 by S.A. Whitehead — Food Editor, Net World Media Group

Hamburgers may have won America's beef-besmitten heart, but their resource-laden production demands are tough on the planet's ever-increasing population. Production of a single beef patty requires nearly 7 pounds of grain, 53 gallons of water, a sprawling chunk of pastureland and a whole lot of fossil fuels, according to recent estimates.

Those statistics really bugged one very bright fellow — Stanford Medicine's Biochemistry Professor Dr. Patrick O. Brown. He decided to do something about it by finding out what makes beef so delicious to humans at the molecular level. Over a lot of time, effort and applied expertise, Brown isolated a substance —  called heme —  that's not only in the blood of animals, including humans but also in plants,

"My first taste of the Impossible Burger was a surreal moment: A burger that was delicious, simple, clean and sustainable? I couldn’t believe it."

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       -Bareburger CEO and Co-founder Euripides Pelekanos 

To put it simply, heme is what makes beef taste like beef, but on a molecular scale, it's the same stuff (and also tastes like the exact same stuff) as the heme that exists in smaller quantities in plants. Brown said he figured out how to take that more sustainable and humanely created plant-based heme and produce the identical beefy, taste feel and juiciness of the cow-sourced stuff. Only difference is, this "beef" — used exclusively in the aptly named "Impossible burger" —  doesn't have a shred of beef in it. 

Brown eventually discovered how to produce heme from plants in vast amounts, according to NPR, on the product when it debuted at a New York restaurant. Essentially, the Impossible Burger is made by taking the gene that makes the stuff in soybeans and fermenting it in yeast to grow lots more of it. Then, it's blended with other proteins and plant-based ingredients to produce un-beef 2.0, otherwise known as the Impossible burger.

After months stirring up buzz about heme at its previous high-end restaurant debuts, the Impossible burger makes its big fast casual chain debut at the Manhattan location of the Bareburger chain.

"Our mission is to make delicious, nutritious and affordable food for everyone — in a way that is sustainable and scalable," Brown said of his creation and the company he founded to create it, Impossible Burger.  "Bareburger is a great partner for us because we’re both growing fast. We can learn from each other and from our customers — and I’m sure we’ll have a lot of fun!"

A Bareburger burger that really is bare of beef

Bareburger, a fast casual burger chain with 43 units,  will serve its first Impossible Burger-based sandwich today at its LaGuardia Avenue store in Manhattan near the New York University campus, but the item will be available at all units.

"The product has been received exceptionally well at the existing restaurants," Impossible Burger Head of Commercialization Dana Worth said in an interview with QSRweb.com. "What we have seen at the existing restaurants is that the burger becomes a very popular item on any menu it's on and drives new traffic and demographics for our restaurant partners....

"We actually used a food truck last fall, as part of our efforts to reach more people. We rolled around the (San Francisco) Bay Area for a week, visiting schools and parks giving away sliders. It was well-received by all."

Making the "Impossible" real at chain-level
At the quick-growing Bareburger chain, a signature seasoning is added to the basic Impossible burger, along with Colby cheese, pickled red onions, bread-and-butter pickles and special sauce on a brioche bun for $13.95. The chain also will let customers create their own versions by choosing the bun, sauce and toppings they prefer. 

And just like cow meat, this plant-ified rendition of beef, can be ordered prepared anywhere from rare to well done. Seasonings can be added or just about any augmentation made that can be made to the meatier version of this meat. In fact, Impossible burger's Bareburger debut was precipitated by that chain's owner's first disbelieving taste of the stuff.

"My first taste of the Impossible Burger was a surreal moment: A burger that was delicious, simple, clean and sustainable? I couldn’t believe it," Bareburger CEO and Co-founder Euripides Pelekanos said in a release about the Wednesday launch.  

"Our mission is to make delicious, nutritious and affordable food for everyone — in a way that is sustainable and scalable." 

                                                                                                                                                                                           -Impossible Burger creator, Stanford Medicine's Biochemistry Professor Dr. Patrick O. Brown

Impossible's mission no longer Mission Impossible

The time is right for this product, as trends indicate a growing number of consumers want to not only eat more sustainably. They also avoid potentially harmful additives, including hormones, antibiotics, cholesterol and artificial flavors, which are often found in animal-based meats like beef. Indeed, even the mighty McDonald’s is supporting two pilot programs around the concept of "sustainable beef," which some environmentalists claim is an oxymoron. According to Fortune,McDonald's is helping launch a pilot to measure supply chain beef sustainability and another that tests grazing practices for carbon impact. 

But this burger is quite unequivocally sustainable, since it is not beef. Instead, the Impossible burger begins its path to restaurants not as the product of slaughter, but as a base that comes in the form of a raw plant-based block, similar in appearance to raw ground beef. That is the product restaurants obtain, Worth said.  

"This gives chefs the flexibility to create their own dishes and add their own touches," Worth said. "We have chefs who make six-ounce 'bistro burgers,' and chefs who prefer two-ounce fast-food-style burgers. 

"We've also had chefs experiment with tacos, nachos, pizza, ravioli and pretty much anything else you can make with ground beef. …  We are constantly working on new products and plan to eventually make plant-based versions of any animal-based food. "

The manufacturing of the product is already being scaled up, allowing the company to supply more restaurants, Worth said. The company plans to launch Impossible Burgers at more fine-dining restaurants and multi-unit chains throughout the United States with international locations to follow. 

The creation provides tremendous promise for an increasing role in foodservice for more sustainable food sources, Pelekanos said about the product that is made using 75 percent less water, 87 percent fewer greenhouse gases and 95 percent less land than traditional ground beef. 

"I know this may sound cheesy, but I truly believe that serving the Impossible Burger at Bareburger will help make the world a better place," Pelekanos said.

About S.A. Whitehead

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Pizza Marketplace and QSRweb editor Shelly Whitehead is a former newspaper and TV reporter with an affinity for telling stories about the people and innovative thinking behind great brands.