California-based plant-based food company Impossible Foods is hiring for a second shift at its Oakland production facility. The business is making plans to double production due to an increased demand for vegan meat, Meat+Poultry reports.
Impossible Foods is known for the vegan Impossible Burger, a plant-based burger designed to look, cook, and taste like meat. The presence of the dish in restaurants and other facilities across the country has seen major growth over the past year. In March, the company reported that more than 1000 restaurants had added the “bleeding” vegan burger to the menu. The company is on the cusp of doubling that number, according to a statement by Rachel Konrad, the chief communications officer at Impossible Foods.
“We are now in nearly 2,000 restaurants in the United States. To continue to expand throughout the USA and satisfy strong demand for the Impossible Burger, both in restaurants and ‘non-commercial’ sites such as college campuses, stadiums, corporate canteens and elsewhere, we need to increase production,” Konrad said.
In September, the plant-based meat company opened the 68,000-square-foot facility in Oakland, California, in order to scale up production. The large-scale facility has the capability to produce one million pounds of vegan meat per month, which equates to one million quarter-pound Impossible Burgers per week.
“[W]e are currently hiring people to work a second shift and making plans to double production in our first large-scale plant — and eventually, we will add more plants as well,” Konrad said.
The news of the second shift closely follows the announcement of the $114 million convertible note investment Impossible Foods recently raised in order to expand to international markets. In April, the Impossible Burger made its international debut in Hong Kong. Additionally, earlier this year, the vegan Impossible Burger made its fast-food restaurant debut at the popular chain, White Castle.
With plans to expand to markets throughout Asia and the United States (and the ultimate goal of creating plant-based meat and dairy for every culture of the world), combined with the rising demand for vegan meat, the company says that there is more work to be done.
“Our world-class investors enable us to ramp up rapidly and accomplish our urgent mission. We are proud of the progress we’ve made — but frankly, there are still millions of restaurants and billions of people who want meat. We won’t stop until the global food system is truly sustainable,” said Impossible Foods CEO Pat Brown.
Image Credit: Impossible Foods
