Impossible's pandemic pivot, Two Rebel yells — and more morsels

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Impossible is expanding its supermarket footprint, a bid to get back on the front burner as we eat out less, Gerald Porter Jr. reports for Bloomberg. Impossible burgers are at eateries all over, but the company hasn't been as aggressive in grocery as, for example, Beyond. "This means the pandemic, which has brought restaurants to a grinding halt while grocery has exploded, is likely to have hit it harder than some competitors," says Porter. So, starting this week Impossible burgers will be stocked at Albertsons and Safeways in California and Nevada, every Wegmans along the East Coast, all Jewel-Osco stores in Chicago and Fairways in the New York area. That's 777 more supermarkets, and brings the total to about 1,000. That doesn't mean you'll be able to easily stock up, since supermarkets are still enduring considerable demand shock.

Rebellyous Foods, which "crafts next-generation plant-based nuggets," just got a $6 million infusion, vegeconomist reports. The money is going primarily to tool up a production facility and R&D that even Seattle neighbor Boeing would envy. Maybe that's no accident; Rebellyous founder and CEO Christie Lagally is a mechanical engineer with five manufacturing patents, and — oh yeah — a long stint at Boeing. Alt meats meet the taste bar but are still pricey by comparison. Volume is the answer, and that's why you need the "development of replicable, novel equipment and standardized facilities" and to "fast-track ... manufacturing scaleup," which is where this money is going. One more reason the round is remarkable: Rebellyous goes after food service channels like schools, which are shut down tight, so this is a venture bet.

Helping Hands [?]

• Oregon-based vegan chain Next Level Burger has raised $5,500 to feed frontline medical workers in four states (VegNews's Nicole Axworthy )
• No Evil Foods has donated over 3,000 pounds of plant-based meat to organizations who feed the homeless and needy in North Carolina (their HQ) and California. That's about 15,000 meals! (VegOutNY's Tammie Ortlieb)

Burger King isn't getting the royal treatment in Britain, whose Advertising Standards Authority has banned a campaign for the Rebel Whopper as "falsely suggest(ing) the burger was suitable for vegans and vegetarians." This may sound familiar, as BK is fighting a lawsuit in the US by a vegan who said he felt duped because the Impossible Whopper is cooked on the same grill as beef and comes with a mayo-based sauce. BK asserts that lawsuit has no merit because, basically, the claimant should have known better. But it has been more contrite in the UK, where it acknowledged that using the logo of soy-patty producer Vegetarian Butcher was “potentially misleading." The Vegan Society — which Shabana Arif of Gizmodo UK colorfully reported had given the Rebel Whopper "a free pass" — is lamenting a "missed opportunity," the BBC notes.  

Milk is being dumped all over "because of a precipitous drop in demand from schools, restaurants and other food service providers, "Danielle Wiener-Bronner reports for CNN. It may seem a stretch to bring that up in a blurb about a failed attempt to make it illegal to market alt milk, but here's the news: Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has vetoed a proposed law would have defined milk— take a deep breath — as "the lacteal secretion of a healthy hooved mammal and provides that a food product is unlawfully misbranded if its label states that it is milk and it fails to meet such definition, except for human breast milk.” Northam said it would be bad for business, but for good measure added it "likely conflicts with both the United States Constitution and the Constitution of Virginia and each’s protection of commercial speech."

I hope whatever you eat you're taking care of yourself, your families, and each other. Food is a wonderful way to be happy, and to socialize. So break bread with loved ones and be extra kind and generous to the folks delivering your takeout.