May 25, 2020
Opinion: Software to Swallow — Impossible Foods Should Be Called Impossible Patents
Intellectual Property Model of Food Maintains Harmful Reliance on GMO Grains, Detracts from Regenerative Agriculture, Hastens Soil Loss
Impossible Foods should really be called Impossible Patents. It’s not food; it’s software, intellectual property — 14 patents, in fact, in each bite of Impossible Burger with over 100 additional patents pending for animal proxies from chicken to fish. It’s iFood, the next killer app. Just download your flavor. This is likely the appeal for Bill Gates, their über investor. It’s a food operating system (FOS), a predecessor, perhaps, to a merger with Microsoft. MS-FOOD. The business model is already etched in Silicon Valley — license core technology (protein synthesis) while seeking vertical integration of supply chains, which, in this case, is not from coders to users, but from genetic engineers to protein seekers.
Will Impossible Foods stand against healthy soils legislation? That will reveal what their appetite is for.
In this software-as-food scenario, there is no place for nature. Manufacturing of Impossible Burger starts with glyphosate-sprayed soy grown on what was once healthy prairie. It is then infused with heme molecules produced by patented yeast in high-tech labs for the blood-like upgrade. Finally, it ends its journey as a plastic-wrapped puck that some are brave enough to ingest. Just fry with canola oil and the illusion of a meal is complete. As Pat Brown, Impossible Foods founder and CEO openly states, animals are just a “technology” that consumers simply had to “live with.”
“animals have just been the technology we have used up until now to produce meat… What consumers value about meat has nothing to do with how it’s made. They just live with the fact that it’s made from animals.” — Pat Brown, Impossible Foods CEO
The pretense that this wealth-concentrating march of the software industry into the food sector is in any way good for people or the environment is predicated on a comparison with only the worst aspects of animal agriculture. It ignores, entirely, the rapidly growing regenerative movement that is offering so much hope for the planet at this key time, healing landscapes, replenishing aquifers, and mitigating fires. Thus, because of its reliance on grains, tillage, pesticides and fertilizers, fake meat of scale exacerbates depletion of grasslands while undermining a more legitimate solution. As soon as there is a price on soil carbon, however, this misdirection becomes evident. Will Impossible Foods stand against healthy soils legislation? That will reveal what their appetite is for.
Patents Assigned to Impossible Foods Inc.
Patent number — 10287568 - Methods for extracting and purifying non-denatured proteins
Patent number 10273492 - Expression constructs and methods of genetically engineering methylotrophic yeast
Patent 10172380 - Ground meat replicas
Patent number 10172381- Methods and compositions for consumables
Patent number 10093913 - Methods for extracting and purifying non-denatured proteins
Patent number 10039306 - Methods and compositions for consumables
Patent number 10087434 - Methods for extracting and purifying non-denatured proteins
Patent number: 9943096 - Methods and compositions for affecting the flavor and aroma profile of consumables
Patent number: 9938327- Expression constructs and methods of genetically engineering methylotrophic yeast
Patent number: 9833768 - Affinity reagents for protein purification
Patent number: 9826772 - Methods and compositions for affecting the flavor and aroma profile of consumables
Patent number: 9808029- Methods and compositions for affecting the flavor and aroma profile of consumables
Patent number: 9737875 - Affinity reagents for protein purification
Patent number: 9700067- Methods and compositions for affecting the flavor and aroma profile of consumables
Patent number: 9011949 - Methods and compositions for consumables
Resources
Patents Assigned to Impossible Foods Inc.
https://patents.justia.com/assignee/impossible-foods-inc
Patrick O. Brown
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_O._Brown
Interview with David Lee, Impossible Foods
https://futurefoodtechsf.com/interview-with-david-lee-impossible-foods/
Impossible Foods Closes a $75 Million Investment After Achieving Key Milestones
Not Impossible Valuations: Impossible Foods Has All the Buzz (And Market Cap)
6 Reasons Impossible Burger’s CEO Is Wrong About GMO Soy
https://www.ecowatch.com/impossible-burger-gmo-soy-2637794276.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1
Note: This opinion was originally posted in the Soil4Climate Facebook group. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Soil4Climate/permalink/2702432830028454/
