Can a “high-tech” burger help save the planet?
In one sense, it is just a patty made from plant protein, but the founders of California-based Impossible Foods Inc say the product could have a big effect by reducing the amount of land needed for beef and other livestock production.
Impossible Foods, which began in 2011, chose the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas to launch its “next generation” burger — version 2.0 — which has no gluten, hormones or antibiotics, and is kosher and halal-certified.
With a handful of restaurateurs and chefs on hand, the company on Monday said that it has 5,000 restaurants serving its product as it prepares to begin selling in supermarkets.
Impossible Foods also brought a food truck to the large tech show to serve more than 12,000 samples of the burger to CES attendees.
The decision to appear at CES was logical, because the company is based on technology, said chief executive officer Pat Brown, a Stanford biochemistry professor and former pediatrician.
“To most consumers the face of the company is a food company, but the soul of the company is really R&D [research and development] and technology,” he said ahead of a news conference at the Las Vegas tech extravaganza.
“What distinguishes us is we are developing a new technology platform that will transform the global food system,” Brown said.
The company, which has raised about US$400 million, including from Microsoft Corp founder Bill Gates, was launched to develop a plant-based product that simulates the taste and feel of beef.
It uses wheat protein, potato protein, coconut oil and its “special ingredient” called heme, which has elements of the hemoglobin in animal protein, but is developed from soy.
Impossible Foods is among a handful of firms, including California rival Beyond Meat, developing plant-based or lab-grown meat substitutes that claim to offer products equal to or better than animal products.
The Impossible Burger is served in several restaurant chains, as well as the fast-food group White Castle, and is eyeing global expansion with restaurants in Hong Kong and Macau.
The company plans to launch the new recipe in Singapore within several months, with additional markets to come.
“We’re doing some early work preparing for [global] expansion,” Brown said.
Brown said that developing new kinds of protein is crucial for the environment when large areas of land — some estimates suggest 40 percent or more of global land area — are devoted to livestock.
Impossible Foods is “barely getting started” and hopes to be able to scale up to produce large quantities.
“Apple started with one hand-built computer,” he said. “You have to start somewhere.”
He added that technology and research would also help further improve the product.
“Unlike the cow, we are going to be getting better every single day,” he said.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)