In 2016, after five years of research, Impossible Foods launched a plant-based burger that “wasn’t your vegan friend’s garden patty.” Founder Pat Brown wasn’t interested in selling it to vegetarians, he once told CNBC, but to “the hardcore meat lover.” A feat of biochemical engineering, the Impossible patty handled like ground beef, sizzled on a hot grill like flesh, even “bled” the way juicy burgers are supposed to. It was convincing enough that within three years of its debut, every Burger King in the country was serving an Impossible Whopper.
Impossible’s latest creation continues the crusade to convert dedicated carnivores: This summer, the brand revealed the Indulgent Burger, its “juiciest, beefiest, thicccest” offering yet. It shares a virtually identical lineup of ingredients with the original quarter-pound patty, but the new formula is designed to maximize the burger’s beefiness. The Indulgent is heftier than its predecessor (⅓ of a pound versus 1/4), and contains more salt, as well as more than twice the amount of fat. According to Impossible, 82 percent of its early tasters said that the Indulgent Burger tasted “as good as or better than ground beef from cows,” while one Fast Company writer described it as not just the first plant-based burger he “really enjoyed,” but a potential “game changer” for the entire plant-based meat category.
Recently, I slathered some bouncy burger buns with mayo, fired up my hottest burner, and tossed a pair of patties into a pan. Little white globules of coconut oil, intended to simulate natural marbling in meat, melted and sputtered. I wrinkled my nose as the sharp, metallic smell of Impossible’s not-at-all-secret sauce, heme—a molecule found in meat that the company produces using genetically engineered yeast, and which is responsible for the patties’ signature color, smell, taste, and tendency to “bleed”—filled my typically vegetarian kitchen. After a few minutes on each side, the exterior, originally the color of watered-down cranberry juice, had caramelized into a dark brown. As I loaded the burger into the bun with lettuce, tomato, a round of red onion, and a yellow square of American cheese, I forgot for a moment that I was about to eat a combination of soy protein, vegetable oil, methylcellulose, and cultured dextrose.
Impossible’s beefed-up burger lands at a moment when fortunes have flipped for purveyors of faux flesh. After years of flying high—billions of dollars in investment, numerous high-wattage celebrity endorsements, and distribution across tens of thousands of restaurants, grocery stores, and fast food chains—sales of plant-based meat as a whole have been either stagnant or falling since 2022. Impossible and its chief rival, Beyond Meat, have both laid off roughly 20 percent of their employees in the past year. Of course, critics of the cow-less burgers are gloating.
I sliced my burger in half, revealing its layers: a brown, seared crust and a pink, fleshy middle—what one expects to see when they bisect a burger. Taking a bite, the tug and tear of the patty felt uncannily like ripping into muscle fibers. Salty juice sputtered out with every bite, soaking my bread. It’s definitely…meaty, I thought. Flavor-wise, it tasted much like the brand’s standard burger, only bigger, oozier, and richer; a touch more like beef. If I hadn’t experienced the flavor of real animal flesh before—intensely savory, gamey, and a little bit sweet—I might not have known the difference. The Indulgent was so honkin,’ in fact, that it overpowered my sweet summer tomato, crisp lettuce, and velvety, piquant cheese. Some people are going to love that.