Impossible Foods announced today that it is taking off to the Great White North. Starting today, the company’s plant-based burger will be available in a number of well-known restaurants across Canada. This marks Impossible’s first international expansion outside of Asia.
Impossible seems to be following the same playbook that it used to debut here in the U.S.: provide its plant-based burger to a small number of well-known restaurants first, before a broader rollout. Restaurants in Canada that are now serving Impossible include: Bymark, Maker and Patois in Toronto, Hog Shack Cookhouse in Vancouver and North & Navy in Ottowa.
According to Impossible’s press announcement, its plant-based meat will be available to all Canadian restaurants starting next month, with grocery availability to follow later this year.
Up until today, Canada was basically the domain of Impossible rival, Beyond Meat. Beyond has run a number of pilot programs in Canada including with McDonald’s, KFC, Starbucks, and Canadian staple, Tim Horton’s.
Impossible’s move into Canada caps off what has been a busy summer for both it and Beyond. Impossible quickly ratcheted up its retail presence in the U.S. through Walmart, Trader Joe’s and Kroger. It also launched a D2C channel and launched a plant-based sausage at Starbucks and Burger King in the U.S. And oh yeah, it also raised another $200 million.
For its part, Beyond Meat launched its own D2C channel as well, launched a plant-based chicken pilot with KFC in California, and expanded its presence in China.
All this expansion comes at a time when the pandemic is highlighting inequalities in the meat packing industry and spurring a surge in plant-based meat sales.
In other words, Canada will just be one of many battlegrounds around the globe where plant-based burgers duke it out.
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