spite<\/em> of the way it\u2019s made. And they try very hard not to know where their meat comes from, because it\u2019s just so unpleasant. <\/p>\n\n\n\nEvery abattoir on Earth, no matter how modern it is, is a horror show. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I mean, we all kind of know that deep down. But who\u2019s got the nerve and the self-confidence to say, \u201cMeat animals are a disaster, so let\u2019s fix it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pat This is the most urgent and important problem to solve in the world. Full stop. OK? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are not going to save ourselves from catastrophic climate change without replacing animals in the food system. It\u2019s just\u2014you can\u2019t get there from here. \/But what stands in the way is satisfying the demand for this particular kind of food that, that incentivizes people to cover the planet with cows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The more he researched animal agriculture, the more upsetting it seemed. And before long, well, it was good-bye, Stanford\u2014hello, Impossible Foods, which he founded in 2011. Its modest goal was to create food that looks, tastes, smells, and handles like meat\u2014but is made of plants\u2014using science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pat When I started the company, we put together an awesome R&D team. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
These are not people who came from the food industry. I mean, in the food industry, you know, the innovation of the year is a new flavor of Fruit Loops. we do have people from the food industry who are very good at what they do, but for fundamental innovation, that just does not happen at General Mills. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And so I hired people who would otherwise have gone into academia, the biomedical industry, pharmaceutical industry, or whatever, who are basic scientists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Three years in, we had something like 80 R&D scientists and like three businesspeople, OK? We were\u2014we were purely an R&D operation devoted to the task of understanding how meat works, and, and figuring out what\u2014you know, what ingredients that we can source from\u2014effectively from the plant world or produced by fermentation are required to recreate that entire experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
David You seem to have come into the problem saying, \u201cThese problems are solvable.\u201d And they were! I just\u2014I just don\u2019t know how you knew. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pat I think a lot of scientists, if they had chosen to look at this problem, would have come to the same conclusion, OK? This is, this is a hard problem, but it\u2019s easier than a lot of biomedical research problems that you might want to study. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
(cont\u2019d) Once you ask the question, it\u2019s answerable, OK? And the fact that we were able to find the answer basically says nobody had asked the question, OK? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
David Inside the labs, what is the process? What does it look like? Is it, is it people in lab coats with beakers? Is it, is it more like a kitchen? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pat We have more than 200 people in our R&D team. So we have a basic R&D lab that is building the knowledge that helps us understand, you know, what are the flavors and mechanical properties that we need to create, and our op\u2013 and are sort of optimizing. It\u2019s the analytical part. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s the, you know, there\u2019s the figuring out the\u2014where we can source the raw materials that\u2014to precisely match the properties that we need for those ingredients. Then there is the engineering aspect of, of how we turn this into a scalable process and product. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
and then there\u2019s the sensory testing and cooking. We\u2019re iterating on all our project\u2014products, like literally, multiple times a day. We adjust this, we adjust that, we have\u2014we do analytical comparisons. But we also have sensory testers who are giving us feedback on whether it\u2019s going in the right direction or not. So there is a kitchen aspect to it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I mean, when we were trying to make ground beef, one of our early taste tests, one of the tasters described the prototype as tasting like rancid polenta, OK? And this is great, I love it, because, because that\u2019s how it is in science, you know. Like, you, you do it, you get better and better and better by iterating and understanding what\u2014OK, this is, this is the next thing we need to solve. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After five years of this taste testing and iteration, finally, in 2016, the company was ready to ship its first product, the Impossible Burger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Impossible Burger is not a veggie burger, which wouldn\u2019t fool anyone. It\u2019s not tofu. It\u2019s not that crumbly black bean stuff. Impossible Burgers look, cook, feel, smell, and taste astonishingly close to ground beef. Here\u2019s a chef guy on YouTube realizing that for himself:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Guy: It looks like meat, it feels like meat, and it tastes like meat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As you cook them, these patties even bleed<\/em> the way raw beef does. <\/p>\n\n\n\nGuy This is what\u2019s so crazy about these burgers. They\u2019re actually bleeding there. Time to flip\u2026And then the browning is insane. It looks just like an actual burger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a bun, with condiments, they\u2019re nearly impossible to distinguish from a really great dead-cow burger. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Guy Best burger I\u2019ve ever had. Just the perfect combination. Doesn\u2019t taste 100% like ground beef, but it\u2019s very close, but it has its own feel, and to be honest, I actually like the taste of it. The science behind this, it creates an incredibly flavorful product that really just holds up and tastes meaty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And yet\u2014they are not meaty. They are meatless. The dominant ingredient is soy protein. And therefore, environmentally, they\u2019re home runs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pat Our current ground beef product\u2014uses 1\/25th the land area. It uses 1\/8th the water. It uses less than a twelfth the, the fertilizer and agrochemicals that, that go into making a pound of beef. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Overall, according to the package, producing an Impossible Burger spews out 89% fewer greenhouse-gas emissions than raising a cow burger. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
By the way\u2014a little moment of disclaimer here\u2014I have zero connection to this company. I don\u2019t own any stock, I\u2019d never met Pat Brown until I harangued his PR team for this interview, and they didn\u2019t pay anything to be the subject of this episode. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
OK, OK, you got me. After <\/em>the interview was over, they shipped me one box of their Impossible chicken nuggets. Clearly, trying to buy me off.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAnyway, back to the Impossible Burgers. They give you about the same amount of protein, iron, fat, and calories as beef, and no cholesterol, hormones, or antibiotics. They do contain much more sodium than beef. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
David What I don\u2019t understand about your trajectory is that you had this idea: \u201cOh, I\u2019ll invent a plant-based beef patty that, you know, tastes as good and has the same texture, smell, color, cooking characteristics.\u201d And then you did it! I mean, there have been many people who tried to make tasty plant burgers before you. I don\u2019t understand what gave you the\u2014the confidence to think that you, this one guy, would pull it off. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pat Well, first of all, I think what we set out to do was not to make a delicious plant-based burger. It was to build a technology platform that could replace livestock in the food system, OK? That\u2019s a very, very different\u2014. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
David So even bigger! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pat It\u2019s kind of hard to explain, but, but sometimes with scientific problems, it\u2019s easier to solve a bigger problem than a smaller problem. And the\u2014in this case, what you have to do is think about what is the essential value proposition of, of livestock as a technology? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And basically, what they do is they, they convert cheap, abundant plant biomass into these nutrient-dense foods with a very specific kind of deliciousness that people are very habituated to, and\u2014and have learned to love. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And when you frame it that way, and you say, the job here is not, \u201cI\u2019m going to create this little one-off product,\u201d but to replace that technology, then you have to step back and understand, \u201cOK, how, in\u2014you know, in actionable sort of biochemical terms, does it produce foods that have these attributes that people love, OK?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, and a lot of the way that works, in terms of meat texture and flavor\u2014it\u2019s pretty similar across species and\u2014and different, you know, form factors of meat, and so forth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Basically all the animals they\u2019re, they\u2019re\u2014if you looked at their tissues under a microscope or even under an electron microscope, you\u2019d have a hard time telling, telling one species from another, OK? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And so, we sort of set out at the beginning basically saying that, \u201cwe\u2019re not going to just start slapping a bunch of greens together and mixing flavors in and hoping for luck. We\u2019re going to understand how meat works as a biochemical system, OK?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
David Are you saying that there is no point during that four or five year development period when you wondered if you would get there? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pat No. No, I mean, I\u2019ve never doubted our success. I went into this basically saying, look, it\u2019s on us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the Impossible Burger was first introduced, the company could make only small batches, so you could only get them at a few high-end restaurants. They weren\u2019t available in grocery stores until 2019, which is also when Burger King started offering the Impossible Whopper. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
David I mean, beef is something that a beef-eater knows intimately. And you have to nail the looks, the texture, the flavor, the smell, how it cooks, how it handles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pat We knew that we could not just use conventional food science the way, you know, people in the past have tried to make meat replacements. We had to approach it as a hard scientific problem, a hard but solvable scientific problem, OK? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can break down the problem into solvable pieces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example, how do you make a plant-derived burger get that slightly crisp exterior when you sear it? Well, they discovered that potato protein can deliver that effect. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What about the sizzle of melting fat in the pan? Little flecks of semidried coconut oil could simulate that, because it melts at about the same temperature as cow fat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pat A lot of the kind of fatty mouthfeel that people get from animal fat is\u2014sort of depends on the fact that it has a relatively flat melting profile that is, centered around your body temperature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One meaty characteristic at a time\u2014those were Pat Brown\u2019s solvable pieces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pat The hard part is deliciousness. Nutrition, cost\u2014those are, those are a piece of cake. And, and, it\u2019s, it\u2019s producing the constellation of sensory properties that, that matter to consumers. And it\u2019s a constellation, but it\u2019s finite, OK? The hard part is deliciousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So how do you solve a problem like deliciousness? What plant-based ingredient can give you the delicious flavor <\/em>of beef? It was clear that there would be no Impossible Burger until the company could find a solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\nPat What is it that makes meat taste categorically different from anything in the plant world? If you give someone who, who is a meat eater some morsel of food and asked them to identify it on flavor alone, even just from the aroma, they could pretty much consistently do it, irrespective of what kind of meat it is. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Incredibly, he discovered the answer. Feeling sufficiently teased? Then stay tuned, because after the ads, I\u2019ll tell you about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Break<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\nOK, enough ads! Welcome back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before the break, I was telling you about how Pat Brown\u2019s army of scientists created the Impossible Burger, one characteristic at a time. And I was hinting at this one miracle ingredient that, almost singlehandedly, provides the color, the flavor, and the deliciousness of beef. It\u2019s the ingredient that made Pat Brown\u2019s dream a reality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that one incredible ingredient turned out to be\u2014love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Music\u2026a crowd \u201cAwwww\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nNo, I\u2019m totally kidding. It\u2019s a molecule called heme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pat (cont\u2019d) A lot of the flavor\u2014 there\u2019s more to it, but 90 percent of it plus, is that\u2014is that animal tissues contain this molecule, an abundant amount of this molecule, heme. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s H \u2013 E- M- E. Otherwise known as, the molecule that built Impossible Foods. If I worked at the company, I\u2019d have made a T-shirt for Pat Brown to wear that says \u201cHeme-Man.\u201d Get it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here\u2019s the company\u2019s principal scientist, Rachel Fraser, in a company video.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rachel We were the first to discover that heme is what makes meat taste like meat. It\u2019s highly abundant in animal tissue. And if you were to eat meat raw, that bloody flavor that you get, that\u2019s also heme. And when you cook meat, all the different flavors and aromas that you get, that is catalyzed by heme as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Heme is not some exotic chemical. It\u2019s around.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nPat Heme is required for every cell on Earth. It\u2019s required for life on Earth. And it does a whole bunch of different things. It\u2019s what carries oxygen in your blood. It\u2019s what stores oxygen in your muscle tissue. And it\u2019s also one of the best catalysts in nature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So the enzymes in your body that metabolize caffeine use heme as sort of the catalytic element, and the enzymes in your body that make estrogen, estrogen, and testosterone also used heme as a catalytic element. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Animals need much more heme, because they use it as an oxygen transport and binding storage system, in a way. And, and so that\u2019s why meat is red or pink. And you know, that\u2019s why your lips are pink and your skin is, you know, rosy and all that sort of stuff, because you have so much heme, OK? In meat, it\u2019s heme\u2014that gives meat its color, which is something that people value in meat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So if you basically took a drop of, of a heme protein and put it into a bowl of vegetable broth, it would basically smell and taste like beef broth, OK? It\u2019s, it\u2019s, it\u2019s\u2014that\u2019s kind of the switch between plants and animals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that\u2019s why there\u2019s such a huge difference between cooking vegetables\u2014and cooking meaty, meaty, meat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pat When you cook broccoli, basically, it gets warmer and mushier and maybe caramelizes a bit, but nothing magical happens. When you cook meat, you basically unlock an explosion of chemistry, right? You get this explosion of aroma and flavor that\u2014it completely transforms in its flavor profile, producing much more intense and new flavors in that process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Heme made the Impossible Burger possible. Pat Brown\u2019s army of scientists had done it\u2014they\u2019d managed to create a burger that really tasted amazing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Impossible Burger was an instant hit. So was its arch rival, the Beyond Burger. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, they\u2019re both selling incredibly well, in stores and restaurants\u2014especially since the start of the pandemic, when virus outbreaks tore through the meat industry, sickening and killing workers, closing meatpacking plants, raising prices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Overall, sales of plant-based meats and milks exploded 27% last year alone. We\u2019re now buying 7 billion dollars\u2019 worth of plant-based meats a year\u2014a number that\u2019s supposed to more than triple in the next two years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
No wonder Nestl\u00e9, Tyson, ConAgra, Kellogg, Hormel, and Kroger have all introduced their own meatless burgers, or will shortly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
David Elon Musk is famous for saying, \u2018I don\u2019t care if Tesla goes out of business, the whole point is to jump start electric cars\u2014as long as electric cars takes over, I don\u2019t care what happens to us.\u2019 Are you in that vein? Like, as long as we stop harvesting animals for meat, I don\u2019t care about my company in particular?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pat I have a responsibility to the people of my company and so forth who have been busting their butts to help us get, you know, to succeed in our mission. And so, I do care if my company goes under. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But on the other hand, if other people are coming into the same, you know, technology, and, and doing things better than we do, well, they deserve their success, and, you know, I\u2019m not interested in competing with them. I seriously am not interested in competing with them from a mission standpoint. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I mean, at some point, I think we\u2019re going to want to be, you know, collaborating with a lot of, of other companies and people and so forth to, to, to accelerate this mission right now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, it probably comes as very little surprise to learn that the meat industry hates, hates, hates <\/em>the idea of plant-based meats. Despises <\/em>their popularity. Meat makers have gone to the remarkably expensive extreme of running a Superbowl ad in 2020 to try to turn people off of plant-based meat like Impossible Burgers. The ad is set at a school spelling bee. <\/p>\n\n\n\n