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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Gelson's

I Tried the New Impossible Burger from the Grocery Store, Here’s How it Tasted

I was once a Vegetarian. For 11 years I did not eat meat or meat products of any kind except the occasional sushi. Being a big fan of burgers and fries and steaks, the only thing I missed being a vegetarian was beef.

Back then, there were no reasonable substitution attempts. A mashed yellow disc was called a veggie or garden burger. Sometimes they were made from beans or some other dry grain – and that’s how they behaved on the grill and tasted on the bun: Dry.

Impossible Foods released its new burger product in stores today, but I dipped in to Gelson’s last night to see if by chance they had put it out already. Turns out the early bird gets the plant-based worm because they had it in stock and I bought it.

It was in the Natural-Organic-Vegan section of the Hollywood Hills Gelson’s, a perfect place for “Burger Made From Plants.” It was frozen, but there were plenty still in stock. A 12 oz. package cost $8.99, has 3 servings per package, with 240 calories, 19g of protein and 14g of fat per serving. For comparison, the Beyond Meat ground costs around $10 for a 16oz package, has 4 servings per package, with 250 calories, 20g of protein and 18g of fat per serving.

I let the meat thaw over night in the fridge and got up this morning to make breakfast burger (that’s a regular hamburger eaten at 7 a.m. with coffee).

I made the patties and noticed that the texture was meat-like and some red juices to emulate a “bleeding” burger. I like my burgers medium rare and would have to experiment a bit to get it like that with Impossible burger. Though the cooking time was about the same as regular beef, it came out a little more done than I had wanted.

How’d it taste? Well, like a burger. And as a former-vegetarian-who-missed-cheeseburgers, I mean that as a compliment. It had a nice umami flavor and the texture when eaten was like beef. But that’s what it’s supposed to be. I dare say it would fool a meat eater. I would have been fooled by it.

Right now, you can only get the Impossible Burger from Gelson’s in Southern California. But given how quickly the Impossible Whopper at Burger King expanded nationwide, and how good this tastes, I can imagine that the store bought Impossible Burger will rapidly expand across California and the country as well. Assuming they don’t have another production shortage.

I can recommend buying the Impossible Burger, especially if you’re worried about the ethical and environmental issues surrounding eating meat. With Impossible and Beyond Meat now readily available at stores, being a vegetarian for 11 years (or longer) would be a lot easier.

Chef’d Meal Kits Get Into Gelson’s Markets

Chef’d, the meal kit company that came back from the dead, is available once again at retail. Supermartket News reports that Gelson’s will be stocking Chef’d meal kits at its 27 California locations.

True Foods had announced its return to retail back in January of this year, and to be honest, we kind of expected its first foray back to be a little more… non-traditional. In 2018, The Spoon had named Chef’d to our Food Tech 25 list of companies because of its innovative approach to selling meal kits, which included using drug stores and smart fridges as sales channels and partnering with big CPG names for branded meal kits. The company abruptly shut down soon thereafter, and its assets were purchased by True Food Innovation, which said it would drop the mail order business and offer meal kits only through retail.

But this news marks a bit of a homecoming for Chef’d which, in its first incarnation, launched at Gelson’s in 2017. In this go ’round, Gelson’s will carry all 8 menu options from both the Chef’d and True Chef brands.

Unlike the last time Chef’d launched, however, retail is lousy with meal kit providers. Kroger bought Home Chef and Albertsons owns Plated, both of which have been rolling out their own meal kits nationwide. But as my colleague, Jenn Marston, wrote in January, True Foods believes it has a product differentiator:

Under True Food, Chef’d kits will return to stores, this time with a 55-day shelf life thanks to a patent-pending formula True Food has developed that uses high-pressure processing without the need for preservatives.

One of the drawbacks to mail order meal kits was the fact that they locked you into eating whatever arrived, regardless of whether you were in the mood for it or not (an admittedly first world problem). If true, the 55 day flexibility of Chef’d meal kits could be a nice way to add an attractive layer of convenience for consumers.

Gelson’s customers will get a chance to see if that claim holds true. Whether it does or doesn’t, drop us a line and let us know.