Impossible Foods announced today that its plant-based Impossible Sausage is now available at retailers across the country. The new sausage comes in two flavors, Savory and Spicy. The product costs $5.99 for a 14-ounce package,and is rolling out at Kroger, Ralphs, King Soopers, Fred Meyer, Safeway, Albertsons, Wegmens, Stop & Shop, Hannaford, Gian martins, Giant Food, Shoprite, Sprouts Farmers Market and Heinen’s.
This is Impossible’s first new product at retail since the company’s Impossible Burger. Impossible Sausage made its debut at CES in 2020 and went to restaurants such as Starbucks and Burger King last year in the form of sausage patties. The plant-based sausage Impossible is introducing today is a ground product and not pre-formed into a patty shape like Beyond Meat’s retail sausage.
During a video chat this week, Michael Bortinger, Senior Manager of Retail Marketing at Impossible Foods told me why. “We always want to bring more products in different forms,” he said. “There really isn’t a ground sausage form in the segment right now. It’s a white space for us.” Bortinger said that the ground form will give the product more versatility to be used in casseroles, sandwiches and more.
Just like the Impossible Burger, the new Impossible Sausage uses heme as one of its ingredients. Because heme is derived from genetically modified ingredients, it does not yet have approval to be sold in the European Union. As such, Impossible is currently focused on the U.S. with this launch. Bortinger said that by the end of the year Impossible Sausage will be available in 13,000 stores domestically.
Impossible said its sausage has 30 percent fewer calories, 47 percent less total fat and 43 percent less saturated fat when cooked and “compared to the leading pork ground sausage.” Impossible’s Savory Sausage has 380mg of sodium per serving, and the Spicy version has 370mg, representing 17 and 16 percent of the daily recommended allowance, respectively. A similar sized package of Jimmy Dean pork sausage contains 415mg of sodium. One serving size of Beyond Meat Classic Sausage Patties (two patties) has 270mg of sodium.
In advance of this post, Impossible sent me samples of the new sausage to try out and it is definitely versatile. We made standalone patties, breakfast sandwiches, breakfast burritos and even mixed it in with some mac n’ cheese. The sausage is indeed delicious, though a little watery in its texture. While there is versatility with the sausage, there is also extra work to cook it. A frozen Beyond Sausage Patty is easy to throw in the oven to heat up as you whip up a morning sandwich. The Impossible Sausage is “raw,” so it takes more work and preparation (forming patties, frying up) and is messier. But having said that, Impossible Sausage will definitely be on my shopping list as I try to reduce the amount of meat I buy.
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