China is the top priority for Impossible Foods when it comes to the US meat-alternatives supplier’s geographic expansion, the company’s chief executive has said.
Pat O’Brown told Reuters Impossible Foods is looking to accelerate moves to enter China. The California-based business already sells into restaurants in Hong Kong and Macau.
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“China is our highest priority for future expansion, full stop,” O’Brown said in comments to the news agency confirmed independently by just-food. “It is the biggest consumer of meat in the world. Something like half the growth in meat consumption globally in the past ten years or so has been in China. Effectively, the place where we can have the greatest impact on our mission is in China.”
The burger made its debut in select restaurants in 2016 and is now on sale in around 10,000 outlets in the US, Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore.
In July, Impossible Foods put more flesh on the bones of plans to launch its burger into the US retail channel after receiving a regulatory boost for a key ingredient.
The company plans to launch the Impossible Burger into its domestic retail market this month. The news came as the US Food and Drug Administration had cleared the use of soy leghemoglobin as a colour additive.
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By GlobalDataThe regulator had approved soy leghemoglobin as a “generally recognised as safe”, or GRAS, ingredient last year. Impossible Foods then launched a separate move to get the green light to use the ingredient as a colour additive.
Meat giant OSI Group is to manufacture the Impossible Burger for the plant-based business. Impossible Foods already makes the product at its facility in Oakland, California.
