Impossible Vegan Milk May Soon Be Available in Supermarkets

There are faux burgers, chicken, and even eggs and Impossible foods is a leader in the plant-based food industry. Now, the company is seeking to redefine the plant-based milk industry by creating a new dairy milk substitute that will look, taste, and feel like real cow’s milk. 

While there are many milk substitutes on the market- made out of oats, almonds, rice, hemp, and more, most fall short of  mimicking their dairy milk counterpart. And while vegans around the world have grown accustomed to these substitutes, millions of avid milk drinkers are unsatisfied with these options, which often taste, look, and blend differently than dairy milk. 

 That precision is exactly what Impossible Foods has set out to develop and formulate. “We want the milk that a dairy milk consumer will choose” said CEO Pat Brown at a virtual conference call, reports CNN. 

In the video conference, Impossible Food’s senior flavor scientist Laura Kliman demonstrated how well the prototype blends with coffee, which is a significant limitation of current non-dairy options. It even foams like dairy milk for the ultimate cappuccino experience. 

Like the famous Impossible Burger (which tastes, cooks, and bleeds like real meat) impossible milk will also most likely be soy-based, giving it a protein profile similar to dairy milk.

While the product is still in development for at least a year, Brown said in the conference call that soy is “a very good choice from a nutritional standpoint and a supply chain standpoint, and for those reasons I think there’s a decent chance that it will be the base protein for our product.”

The company announced that it would double its research and development department in its lab in Redwood City, California to work on the milk substitute and other products, such as faux chicken, steak, and seafood reports Fast Company. 

Plant-based milks, meats, and other products have been steadily rising over the past several years as environmental, health, and ethical concerns have grown, especially among millennials. According to a study by YouGov, approximately 55 percent of millennials surveyed agree with the statement “I am open to substituting meat/dairy products with healthy alternatives.”

And the market is seeing this preference take shape. According to the Dairy Farmers of America, milk sales dropped by $1.1 billion between 2017 and 2018. While at the same time, the Plant-Based Food Association revealed that plant-based milk makes up 15 percent of the total milk market.

As the trend towards consuming plant-based alternatives grows, so do the products, which can now be found in supermarkets throughout the world. With no plans of slowing down, plant-based food alternatives are a micro revolution that is changing the very culture of our food consumption from the bottom all the way to the top.