TURN BACK THE CLOCK
Letter from Pat
To the outside world, Impossible Foods is a food company -- but at its heart is an audacious yet realistic strategy to turn back the clock on climate change and stop the global collapse of biodiversity. Here’s how: If we could wave a magic wand and instantly make the animal-based food industry disappear, two game-changing, natural pathways for greenhouse gas reduction would turn on: methane decay, and biomass recovery. The combined effect of these two mechanisms (and other smaller factors) would result in a net reduction in atmospheric GHGs over the next 20 years, even if we did nothing to reduce all other emissions. Our planet needs that magic wand. Let’s turn back the clock on climate change -- and halt biodiversity collapse.
2020 Hindsight
We suspected that 2020 would be a transformational year -- for Impossible Foods, the global food system, humanity and the planet. And it certainly delivered. This report is our chance to share the lessons learned in 2020 and how we’ll apply them over the next decades. It’s an opportunity to spread optimism and amplify the chorus of people demanding changes to the way we treat our planet and its inhabitants. And it’s an occasion to show how we can eliminate existential threats and revive our planet.
Nourishing those who need it most
Our goal is, and always has been, to make Impossible products ubiquitous(opens in a new tab), particularly in the communities with the greatest needs. Impossible Foods’ Vice President of Communications Jessica Appelgren launched food bank donations nearly three years ago(opens in a new tab); no one could have predicted how much our cross-functional Social Good team would hustle in 2020, a time of unprecedented food insecurity in America.
Food Bank Donations
In March, we launched the #ImpossibleCommunity program, with an initial donation of 83,000 pounds of Impossible Burger to Feeding America food banks. Since then, we’ve teamed up with dozens of food banks, philanthropists and community organizations. Together, we’re on track to donate more than 1 million Impossible™ meals in 2020.
No Kid Hungry
We teamed up with No Kid Hungry to drive funds from sales of Impossible™: The Cookbook(opens in a new tab), which features 40 Impossible™ dishes from top culinary trendsetters. For each one sold on Amazon in 2020, Impossible Foods is donating $3 to No Kid Hungry®, joining their efforts to help feed kids — during school closures and all year long.
Colin Kaepernick
Earlier this year, we began a collaboration with Colin Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Camp, a multi-city program to advance civil rights through education, self-empowerment, mass-mobilization and leadership. Together, we’re facilitating large-scale product donations to organizations disproportionately affected by climate change and hunger.
Votenik Zoom to the Polls
This fall, Impossible Foods teamed up with pioneering restaurateur Pinky Cole of Slutty Vegan, musical mogul Jermaine Dupri, and The Pinky Cole Foundation to kickstart a unique voter registration drive. Together, we hosted a series of webinars featuring prominent civil rights and cultural leaders, open to all Americans.
Inside Impossible Foods
Impossible Foods is already considered the top environmental startup(opens in a new tab) -- and our goal is to make Impossible Foods the world’s best place to work, too. Our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) -- employee-led, executive-sponsored advocacy teams -- help us do that by working with People, Communications, Finance, Supply Chain and other functions to consistently improve our workplace. They accomplished a lot in 2020: from executing a self-audit of the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index, to founding a women-led mentorship program, to making our recruiting process more inclusive. Learn more about their work, and our company community, in this report.
Inside Impossible Foods
Impossible Foods is already considered the top environmental startup(opens in a new tab) -- and our goal is to make Impossible Foods the world’s best place to work, too. Our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) -- employee-led, executive-sponsored advocacy teams -- help us do that by working with People, Communications, Finance, Supply Chain and other functions to consistently improve our workplace. They accomplished a lot in 2020: from executing a self-audit of the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index, to founding a women-led mentorship program, to making our recruiting process more inclusive. Learn more about their work, and our company community, in this report.
Scaling and Learning
2020 marked the most transformative year in our commercial operations. We increased production throughout the year and achieved record economies of scale, which we passed on to customers with an average 15% wholesale price cut in March(opens in a new tab) -- the first of many to come. We also continued a long-term project to achieve zero waste and modernized our waste infrastructure. We scaled up production of heme -- our “magic ingredient” -- to keep our supply chain strong. And we announced a groundbreaking effort to double our R&D team within a year.
Sustainability at your fingertips
Switching to Impossible™ products is a simple, powerful tool to show your environmental stewardship, solve the climate crisis and spare water and land for wildlife. On the 50th anniversary of the original Earth Day in 1970, we launched the Impossible Impact Calculator(opens in a new tab) to show people how much they’re reducing their land, water and greenhouse gas footprint by eating Impossible™ Burger instead of the cow-based analog.
