FDA approval of 'plant blood' will allow Impossible Burger to be sold in raw form at grocery stores beginning Sept. 4 - Entrepreneur Generations

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared the way for the Impossible Burger with soy leghemoglobin — also known as plant blood — to be sold in its raw form in grocery stores.

The Impossible Burger (Photo by Getty Images.)

An FDA rule change, calling soy leghemoglobin a safe color additive, will go into effect Sept. 4 if no objections are raised that cause the agency to reverse its ruling, Bloomberg reports.

Soy leghemoglobin releases heme when heated, which lends the look and taste of real ground beef to the Impossible Burger.

“When you heat up an Impossible Burger, the leghemoglobin releases its heme, just the same way myoglobin in beef would release its heme. Iron-rich heme is part of the characteristic flavor of meat—which is why Impossible wanted it in the first place,” Pat Clinton writes for The New Food Economy.

The Impossible Burger has been sold in restaurants for years, but the raw version couldn’t be sold in stores without an FDA rule change about the safety of the color additive.

Impossible Burgers are sold in more than 5,000 restaurants in the United States, Hong Kong, Macau, and Singapore, according to the company’s website. Burger King just announced it will offer an Impossible Whopper at all of its 7,000 U.S. restaurants beginning Aug. 8.

Now Impossible Burger is poised to compete in stores with the other major plant-based, fake meat, Beyond Burger.

“Beyond’s shares have rocketed nearly eightfold since the company’s May initial public offering, putting the company’s current value at $11.8 billion. Late Wednesday, Beyond conducted a sale of 3.25 million shares at $160 each. Meanwhile, Impossible in May raised $300 million in new funding from private investors, valuing the company at $2 billion,” The Wall Street Journal reports.

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/336nPvK FDA approval of 'plant blood' will allow Impossible Burger to be sold in raw form at grocery stores beginning Sept. 4 - Entrepreneur Generations

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