Impossible Foods cooks up ghost kitchen with Dog Haus

Dive Brief:

Impossible Foods has created an off-premise-only concept called the Impossible Food Shop, which will be offered at roughly 56 Dog Haus restaurants in California, Mercury News reported on Thursday. The Impossible Food Shop is also available in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, New York, Texas and Wyoming, per Impossible's website. The concept's offerings will be available for pickup or delivery via DoorDash, Postmates, Uber Eats and Grubhub.
The initial menu includes six Impossible recipes: four burgers, Impossible Chicken Nuggets, an Impossible Breakfast Sausage burrito and french fries topped with plant-free cheese sauce or Impossible Chili.
This launch comes as demand for plant-based food continues a sharp growth trajectory. Retail sales of plant-based food have jumped 27% in the past year, and 43% in the past two years, SPINS data finds. Plant-based retail food sales grew nearly 2.5 times faster than total food sales growth between 2018 and 2020, per the Good Food Institute.

Dive Insight:

Impossible seems to be making a major play toward creating its own restaurant presence, having also recently opened two food stands in Seattle's Climate Pledge Arena. Dog Haus has had a partnership with Impossible Foods since 2018, and was one of the first in the industry to offer plant-based items.

Such a presence could help Impossible Foods learn how to better operationalize its products, which could be appealing to restaurants interested in adopting plant-based offerings and give the company an advantage over Beyond Meat and other rivals. Beyond recently signed exclusive agreements with two of the world's largest restaurant companies, McDonald's and Yum Brands, which could threaten Impossible's standing.

Still, there seems to be plenty of demand to support several plant-based food suppliers in the category. The global plant-based meat market is expected to grow by over 20% per year through 2028, according to a December report from ResearchAndMarkets.com, and the COVID-19 pandemic has driven an increase in vegan, vegetarian and flexitarian diets across the world. Nineteen percent of consumers said they are eating more plant-based meat and 18% of consumers said they are eating more plant-based dairy, according the International Food Information Council's 2021 Food & Health Survey.

As such, restaurant chains are adopting more robust plant-based strategies. Starbucks, for example, recently turned a location near Seattle into a test site for a 100% plant-based menu.

Plant-based products have not been immune to the supply chain issues hindering the industry, however. During Beyond Meat's Q3 earnings call, CEO Ethan Brown said the company's sales were hurt by the ongoing supply chain crisis. Supply chain disruption has driven up prices, which could deter consumers away from plant-based products as they already come at a higher cost than animal protein. However, beef prices are up nearly 58% year-over-year, which could inspire more plant-based trial from consumers and restaurants than in the past.