Impossible Fish? It’s on the Way.

California-based food technology company Impossible Foods—best known for its flagship product the Impossible Burger—is working to develop plant-based fish to tackle the surmounting crisis in the world’s oceans created by industrial fishing. The company is using its technology platform to build fish from plants and last month, Impossible Foods was able to construct a broth that, according to CEO Patrick O. Brown, tastes similar to anchovies—with which the company made paella. While the final formulation has yet to be developed, Impossible Foods will use the key ingredient from its burgers—soy leghemoglobin, or “heme”—to build its plant-based fish. “The only way we can succeed is to make fish from plants that is more delicious than the fish that’s strip mined from the ocean,” Brown told the New York Times, describing the declining fish population as “an ongoing meltdown.” In addition to fish, Impossible Foods is working toward its goal of replacing all food animals with plant-based alternatives by 2035.