Silicon Valley's well-backed, plant-based burger with realistic meat taste is headed to AT&T Park and other Bay Area places thanks in part to a new production facility in Oakland.
The "Impossible Burger" has been developed over the past six years by Redwood City's Impossible Foods, a private company founded by former Stanford University biochemistry professor Patrick O. Brown. Though based in the Bay Area, the product was unveiled last summer at Momofuku Nishi, a restaurant based in New York City before it became available at Cockscomb and Jardinière in San Francisco.
The company announced Wednesday that the opening of a new large-scale production facility in Oakland would immediately allow for the three new Bay Area restaurants to offer product, and expect to handle up to 1,000 restaurants by year-end.
As of Thursday, you can try it out at Public House in AT&T Park, KronnerBurger in Oakland and Vina Enoteca in Palo Alto.
The Impossible Burger's mission is to not compromise on flavor while delivering a much more environmentally kind and efficient product. The company said it takes a quarter of the water and 5 percent of the land that it takes to make a regular beef burger, with no animals harmed or killed in the process.
The Impossible Burger patty is made from ingredients including potatoes, coconut oil and wheat. But the secret ingredient that gives it a true meat-like taste is heme, a protein found in humans and animals that imparts a juiciness that carnivores crave.
