If you haven't even tried an impossible burger at this point in history, you must be trying not to well now I've got more homework for you.
Here's pork impossible pork.
Let's give it a try.
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Plant based burgers exploded in 2019.
eschewing a focus on vegetarians and vegans and instead trading on their ability to convince or fool the mainstream omnivore.
Little did they know their Whopper Patty was actually made from plants.
[LAUGH] kidding me.
We're not.
I recently went to impossibles headquarters to get a first look at the next thing that's impossible with CEO Pat Brown.
So this is impossible pork?
Yes, it is.
Indeed.
First time.
I've seen it what's in it?
Well, it's not unlike our beef product.
The major protein is soy the protein quality of which is essentially identical to the protein quality.
Beef or pork, so very high quality protein.
Fat sources are sunflower oil and coconut oil.
And that's what I see in here, are pieces of coconut.
Yes.
So that's there for flavor delivery, mouthfeel, and for cooking so that it'll->> Kind of render out those nice fats that people are looking for right.>> And then.
Some simple nutrients amino acids, vitamins, sugars that are flavor precursors, they themselves are relatively neutral and flavor and heem which catalyzes the flavor chemistry to produce the meeting flavors and aromas.
Well that's interesting because we saw some heat over here on a table a minute ago.
It's a deep dark red.
Yes.
And yet pork Is they used to call it the other white meat.
That was in their marketing.
Yes.
So heme is in here.
Heme is in there, and it's actually an essential part of the flavor chemistry of pork, and even chicken, and even fish actually.
Really, all meats?
Yes, heme is the kind of flavor catalyst.
For meat in general.
Because the color would fool you.
You would think, that's a red meat ingredient.
But it has broader use.
Well, chicken is pink and fish is pink.
It's just very pale.
Degrees.
So in this product, the heme concentration is lower, and just as it is in pork.
Now, I always thought of pork as being tofu on the hoof, this blank canvas thing with way less flavor.
Then B. What did you do to replicate that?
Or am I on the wrong path with that perception of where pork fits in terms of how much flavor it has?
There are some pork cuts that have a really high impact porky flavor.
But for most applications in the kitchen chefs value that.
It's not flavorless.
It certainly doesn't taste like tofu.
But the flavor is mild enough that you can readily adjust the overall flavor profile of a dish with your seasonings and condiments and so forth.
So we could have like, put the pork flavor, you know, on afterburner and if we thought that's what consumer wants consumers wanted, but we've got very, very strong feedback from chefs that What they want is something that that tastes like pork, but doesn't dominate.
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Chef Nathan foot is using it in a bond me sandwich and assume I demson the bond me will show us how impossible port grills up when shaped into an elongated Patty about the thickness of a burger.
It's been seasoned in this case basically with salt and pepper then cooked in a pan with some oil.
To my eye it's carmelization and browning are really impressive.
Perhaps because of the contrast against the lighter color of the raw product.
Jeff Nathan then gives it a brush of me so glaze pops it in the oven to finish it through, and then assembles the bond me with a common gathering of fresh toppings.
So this is not a bear taste of impossible pork.
But the way you'd probably eat any ground product in something.
Sure looks right.
Now if anything was nice enough to leave out the cilantro, so that won't distract me because of that was in here.
I wouldn't taste anything else.
Maybe you're one of those like me.
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There's that nice, resistance, chewiness [UNKNOWN] that you want or expect from pork.
But not strong in terms of any kind of.
Over the top pork flavour it is what he made with it as I watched him put the ingredients on there coming through faithfully, but you know, it's a pork by me.
That's really good.
The shumai takes us the direction you might think would be gross for plant based meat steam, but again the pork flavour and especially important in dim sum the texture are convincing And in this preparation at least, it really carries exactly the flavor the he wanted in its Asian preparation real nicely.
But of course, you no longer need to take the word of some guy on camera for any of these.
Plant-based meats made 2019 the year they surprise a lot of people with their taste and mainstream availability.
Celeste Holz-Schietinger is Impossible's director of research
And I've thought about what makes pork pork more than you and I ever will.
We have amazing chefs on our team that will throw it into every dish imaginable and give it basically a rating.
We'll then take that back and the team building it will say, we need to modify these things.
Again, what are the ingredients or what is the functionality that we'll need to modify to change that cooking process.
What did you do to get the taste right?
Because pork to some has very little taste.
It's a something you put flavors on or in.
Yep.>> Did you have to kind of pull back on what you are able to do to hold have some restraint.
So really our key fundamental is starting with the animal and saying what are those key attributes?
And so on the flavor side there is a neutrality to it that is really key so that it shines in all of the key applications.
And one of the key flavors, aspects of pork is fattyness which is both a flavor and a textural component.
So both of those we really needed to understand.
How do you create those pork fat flavors?
And those flavors with the mouth coating the fattiness really carries that product and how it carries so well in so many different An applications.
And while 2019 was the year of plant based meats, it was also the year of push back against plant based meat by critics and competitors.
Often around the nutrition angle.
Just as Impossible didn't offer its burger as a ball of kale, quinoa, kelp, and world peace, Impossible pork also isn't intended to take the health food store by storm either.
It wins against animal pork on fats, cholesterol, iron and a little bit of fiber.
But it does give pause on high sodium and somewhat lower protein.
Why was pork number two?
Why is it next?
Pork is actually a lot more popular than people think in the U.S.
Most people think.
It's number two, basically type of beef.
It's surprised me very close to be, but internationally it's a clear number one, almost half of all the meat consumed globally is consumed in Asia, China is responsible for more than a quarter of global meat consumption.
And I mentioned it's rising the fastest.
It's rising faster than than the global average.
Rise, yes, it's right up there.
In terms of the total mass of growth in meat consumption, China is absolutely at the top of the list.
Let's play a word association game.
I looked at a study from the Pork Producers Council, the people who actually raise pigs to make pig meat.
Okay.
And they said there were five things in this survey that consumers respond to.
That make pork popular with them.
Interesting.
Convenience.
What will you do to make this product convenient?
Well this product is intended to be as versatile and convenient as ground pork from a pig.
So in terms of how it performs in the kitchen, the types of dishes you can make with it, it's completely on par with the pig product.
Tastes are decisive advantage over animal-based meat production is that we can continuously optimize what can anything that consumers care about taste in our own research is number one.
It's the number one decider when consumers are deciding what need to purchase, So that's where most of our research is focused we're not going to release a product until we believe it's really delivers the deliciousness of that particular food for consumers.
And and this product is only just going to keep getting better this is our bi product discretionary income and price.
Sensitivity I guess pork so say the producers does pretty well there.
Where are you in the progress toward getting closer to the price of animal Meats.
We are absolutely on a trajectory toward matching and then beating.
All the animal based products on price, and the thing that that I think can help you understand that is that our product is vastly more resource efficient producing this then then the same products from an animal.
We use a tiny fraction of the land a tiny fraction of the water Tiny fraction of all the inputs are gonna raising the crops that.
Feed the pigs to produce need so less fertilizer less pesticides and that is translates into a much lower environmental impact but also fundamentally better economic.
Another one here was trends of a given consumers generational group.
I think we've discussed pork doesn't have to make any excuses for its market share.
It's doing really well.
The last one of the five was perceived healthfulness 2019 was the year for the doubters to say.
Look, it's not really a kale Burger.
These plant based burgers the impossible burger isn't like eating a mouthful of green vegetables.
That was never your message and yet you got burdened with supposedly saying that what will you do to defend against that misunderstanding with pork.>> Our goal is not to replace kale and the food system is to replace pigs and cows and chickens in the food system.
We have a commitment to consumers and an internal commitment that we're never going to put a product on the market that we don't believe based on the best available scientific evidence is better nutritionally and in terms of health for the consumer than what it replaces.
Not better than a kale salad, but better than a burger or better than ground.
Ground Park from the from a pic if possible pork will debut first as an impossible sausage patty in a breakfast croissant being tested at a hundred and thirty-nine Burger Kings in Georgia, Michigan, Illinois, New Mexico and Alabama a similar strategy with the impossible Whopper quickly led to National Rollout.
