Meal kit company Home Chef announced today it is partnering with Impossible Foods to offer the latter’s plant-based burgers in its kits. This is the first time Impossible has shown up in the meal kit realm, and it comes at a point when consumer demand for plant-based meat is rapidly growing.
Home Chef will offer multiple recipes that give customers the option to swap out regular ol’ protein for Impossible’s burger, which will come as a 12-oz, package of ground meat for use in a range of recipes that would ordinarily call for beef.
The addition of Impossible to the Home Chef roster is part of the meal kit company’s new “Customize It” feature, which lets users adjust their weekly order to fit their needs, whether that’s extra protein, more veggies, or additional servings. Think Chipotle for meal kits. It’s also the latest way in which the Kroger-owned meal kit company is trying to diversify its offerings to meet different consumers’ lifestyles.
Meal kits are just the latest expansion for Impossible, which up until recently had only been available in restaurants. The company launched its direct-to-consumer online store in June. Those in the lower 48 states can buy bulk orders of Impossible products through it.
But while Impossible may be ahead of its rival Beyond in terms of D2C (Beyond has announced but not yet launched its own e-commerce site), it lags behind in meal kits. Beyond has been available in Blue Apron and HelloFresh kits for some time.
Since the start of the pandemic, Impossible has grown its grocery store footprint by more than 30x and its products are now in about 5,000 grocery stores. Meal kits are another road into consumers’ homes, an important destination seeing as how a lot more people are staying home these days. It doesn’t hurt, either, that the long-struggling meal kit market is actually making something of a comeback.
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