Home Chef Teams Up with Impossible Burger

7/15/2020

As Impossible Burger finds fresh popularity, meal-kit providers are seeking to hold pandemic gains.

Meal-kit delivery provider Home Chef has teamed with Impossible Foods — which sells the plant-based alternative meat product Impossible Burger — on a recipe program for consumers.

The idea is to enable meal-kit customers to use Impossible Burger in place of meat as part of the Home Chef “Customize It” feature. Home Chef said it will offer several recipes each week that are suitable to such a substitution. Home Chef is owned by The Kroger Co., a food retail chain that in May put Impossible Burger products on its shelves.

Home Chef said its online menu has 19 different recipes that change weekly. Those recipes include the company’s, Oven-Ready meals, entrée salads, and Grill-Ready meals on top of its more traditional recipe options and protein packs.

"Variety and innovation have always been key parts of Home Chef," said Pat Vihtelic, Home Chef's CEO and founder. "With the launch of Impossible, we are providing our customers more ways to enjoy our weekly recipes and be on the forefront of the trend towards eating more plant-based foods."

Home Chef said that study conducted on behalf of Impossible Foods found that 70% of people who cooked with Impossible Burger deemed the taste comparable to or better than ground beef. As well, 77% thought the product sizzled like ground beef.

"At Impossible Foods, we've long intended to make the Impossible Burger available anywhere that food is sold, including through meal kits," says Dan Greene, senior vice president of U.S. Sales at Impossible Foods. "We're thrilled to share that the Impossible Burger is now on the Home Chef menu, so that cooks everywhere can conveniently try out new recipes with our delicious meat made from plants."

As Impossible Burger and other plant-based alternatives find their way onto more food retails shelves and into more freezer aisles, the meal-kit industry aims to emerge from this pandemic stronger than was the case before, given how consumers are eating at home more often during the ongoing outbreak.

According to a study carried out by the Plant Based Foods Association (PBFA) and The Kroger Co., plant-based meat sales increased by 23% when those items were sold in the meat department.

Cincinnati-based Kroger employs nearly half a million associates who serve 9 million-plus customers daily through a seamless digital shopping experience and 2,757 retail food stores under a variety of banner names. The company is No. 3 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2020 list of the top food retailers in the United States.