Impossible Foods Tackles The Most Impossible Meatless Meat: The Steak

In a conversation with The Spoon, Impossible Foods C.E.O. and founder Pat Brown made plain that he and the rest of the company have their eyes set on the Great White Whale of the alt-meat world—the Moby Steak, if you will.

The news comes on the heels of Impossible's unveiling of a new iteration of the Impossible Burger, its flagship product. The new, gluten-free burger is made from soy and potato protein, with fewer calories and less fat than its predecessor. Yeah yeah burgers whatever, let's get to the whole meat-free steak thing, shall we?

While they plan to keep iterating on their flagship ground beef product, Brown explained that they're also starting to work on what he called "whole cuts of beef," including steak. "[Steak] has huge symbolic value," said Brown. "If we can make an awesomely delicious world-class steak . . . that will be very disruptive not just to the beef industry, but to other sectors of the meat industry."

For vegetarians and vegans that miss large hunks of meat as a dining option, this is no small development, but Impossible Burger's go won't be the first such attempt. In December, the Israeli startup Aleph Farms announced the successful creation of a lab-grown "slaughter-free" steak. The company's founder said that the product is three or four years away from being grocery-story ready—"It's close and it tastes good," co-founder and C.E.O. Didier Toubia told The Guardian, "but we have a bit more work to make sure the taste is 100 percent similar to conventional meat."

You can watch the interview with The Spoon in full below.