Impossible Foods Throws In The Towel On McDonald’s Faux Meat Battle

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By CultureBanx Team

  • Impossible Foods in no longer attempting to win McDonald’s as a customer
  • Investors like Serena Williams & Trevor Noah helped push Impossible’s valuation north of $2B

Plant based meat alternatives company Impossible Foods has reportedly stopped trying to woo McDonald’s (MCD -0.52%) as its next big fast-food customer. Even with huge cultural endorsements from investors like Serena Williams, Jaden Smith, Trevor Noah and Jay-Z, that helped push the company’s valuation north of $2 billion doesn’t seem to be enough. Reuters found talks with the Golden Arches fell apart as they had lots of concerns that Impossible Foods would not be able to produce enough imitation burgers to make a deal work, and based on what transpired at Burger King they may be right.

Why This Matters: Last June, White Castle suffered a month-long shortage of Impossible Slider patties due to the company’s production issues. Prior to those problems, in April 2018 when the bleeding meatless burgers came to Burger King, many customers reported shortages. Not only should McDonald’s and Impossible Foods be concerned, but the startup company’s investors should be as well. In its latest funding round they picked up another $300 million, with a new valuation of $2 billion, as they aim to completely remove animals from the food system by 2035.

Perhaps the big mac maker should be focusing way more attention on Beyond Meat and not Impossible Foods

There’s stiff competition for faux meat, back in May Impossible Foods biggest competitor Beyond Meat (BYND +1.03%) went public, its shares gained 163% on day one. Beyond Meat does have an ace in their back pocket because Former McDonald’s CEO Don Thompson’s venture-capital firm Cleveland Avenue was an early investor in the company. So perhaps the big mac maker should be focusing way more attention on Beyond Meat and not Impossible Foods.

Impossible Foods is working to more than double its production, and they should because Beyond Meat is already testing its vegan burgers at dozens of McDonald’s restaurants in Canada. These two companies are having conversations, and Beyond Meat claims it would have no problem meeting the burger giant’s global demand, according to Reuters.

Situational Awareness: It’s great that so many black cultural trendsetters are putting their money where the mouth is by investing in Impossible Foods, especially with hypertension and heart disease so common within our community. Nearly 44% of African American men and 48% of African American women have some form of cardiovascular disease that includes heart disease, according to the CDC. The government group notes that one of the ways to control these diseases is through a healthy diet, so perhaps plant based alternatives can help bring these numbers down in the black community.

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