Hardware Podcasts

Impossible Foods: Pat Brown

How I Built This · 11 May 2020 · 1h 03m

What this episode covers

Pat Brown, a former Stanford biochemist, explains how he left a tenured career to found Impossible Foods with the mission of creating plant-based meat that appeals to meat-eaters to reduce environmental impact. He details the scientific journey to isolate heme (specifically leghemoglobin) to replicate the taste and 'bleeding' of beef, including an expensive early failure to extract it from soybean root nodules. Brown discusses the strategic decision to launch in high-end restaurants with chefs like David Chang for credibility before scaling to mass market via Burger King, and the massive capital investments required to build fermentation capacity ahead of demand.

Most relevant to

companies scaling up

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Impossible Foods, Burger King, Public Library of Science, Google, U.S. Bank
Products
Impossible Burger, Impossible Whopper
Also
Stanford, David Chang

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