About the Guest

Dana Worth is the Head of Sales at Impossible Foods, the company behind the plant-based Impossible Burger. Dana is responsible for the recent partnership with Burger King, who has attributed their 5% growth in quarterly sales to the plant-based burger. The Silicon Valley-based startup is valued at a jaw-dropping $2 billion after its latest round of funding raised $300 million in capital.

Episode Summary

Q&A with Dana Worth, VP Sales at Impossible Foods explains his company’s bold aspiration to transform the global food system.

Episode Transcript

Zach Goldstein:

00:01

From fake meat and robot chefs to ghost kitchens and delivery drones. The restaurant industry is rapidly evolving. Welcome to food fighters, bringing you interviews with the leading industry trailblazers. I’m your host, Zach Goldstein.

Zach Goldstein:

00:17

Hey, this is Zach Goldstein. Welcome to the Food Fighters podcast. Super excited to be here today with Dana Worth, VP of Sales at Impossible Foods. Impossible Foods is a company that develops plant-based substitutes for meat products. Welcome Dana.

Dana Worth:

00:33

Hey Zach, great to be here.

Zach Goldstein:

00:35

So Dana, tell us about Impossible, what you guys are doing. And we’re really excited about the, the huge impact you’re having on the restaurant industry.

Dana Worth:

00:44

Yeah, happy to. So Impossible Foods was founded in 2011 by a professor of biochemistry at Stanford named Pat Brown. And we have one goal and one goal only, which is to transform the global food system by replacing the use of animals as a food technology in that system. We have developed a product called the “Impossible Burger”, which many of your listeners might be familiar with, uh, sold at 15,000 restaurants across the country, including every location of Burger King in the United States. And it is a burger made out of plants for people who love meat. And as a matter of fact, most of the people who have our burger are meat lovers and we intend to develop a whole range of products that we currently use animals to develop today.

Zach Goldstein:

01:29

That’s fantastic. And the Impossible Burger is really quite an, a fantastic meal. Tell us about the experience for those that haven’t eaten an Impossible Burger, uh because there’s a lot of really revolutionary innovation going into that into that food that makes it so tasty and so effective at achieving that mission.

Dana Worth:

01:51

Yeah. We, you know, I’m a meat eater. I love meat. As I mentioned, most of your listeners are, and most people on the planet are, and people love meat because it’s delicious, because it’s portable, because it delivers nutritional benefits, um, that they want for themselves and their family and the Impossible Burger delivers on all of those same things that people love about animal-based meat. So we work really hard to make it delicious first and foremost. That is what consumers care most about, but it’s also nutritious. It has no cholesterol, but it has all the same micronutrients and the same amount of protein as you expect from your beef burger. And obviously has the benefits of being better for, better for animals and importantly better for the environment. And that is really why we started this company was to mitigate the impact that, that the animal agriculture industry has on the planet to make sure that we have a planet for our children to live on.

Dana Worth:

02:47

One of the ways that we did that, and it was a little bit different, was, you know, we spent four years from 2011 to 2015 working on really trying to understand what it takes to make meat – plants taste like meat. So why does meat taste like meat? Why does it sizzle when you put it on the grill? Why does it turn from red to brown? All of those things were questions that hadn’t really been asked before. And so Pat hired an outstanding team of scientists who spent a ton of time just trying to figure that out, whether it was for cow meat or pig meat or fish or chicken. And we developed a platform over that time that we believe is equally applicable to our first product, the Impossible Burger as it is to future products down the road.

Zach Goldstein:

03:26

That’s awesome. And you personally were responsible for the Impossible Foods partnership with Burger King, which is now nationwide has created the Impossible Whopper which some would even be calling a phenomenon. Burger King recently credited the Whopper with, or the Impossible Whopper specifically with a 5% increase in quarterly sales. That is huge in terms of driving revenue volume to a restaurant. There’s a lot of things restaurants are doing to stay relevant and you’ve created a product that is single-handedly doing that. Tell us about that experience, that process of working with Burger King. How long did it take to break through and, and what’s the future hold?

Dana Worth:

04:08

Yeah, it’s a, it was, it’s a pretty interesting partnership. You know, I, I’ve been at the company since 2015. I joined before we had our first product in the market, did our partnership with our very first restaurant, which was which was David Chang’s Momofuku Nishi in New York. That was restaurant number one. All the way up to our large partnership with Burger King. And you know, to be honest, it’s really been kind of my dream since the beginning to have a partnership with a large QSR. And you know, the way I think about QSRs is if you want to have the impact that we want to have, which is to completely change the food system, you have to be where people eat. And people eat at QSRs. I think the statistic is something from the CDC like 45% of of 20 to 35 year olds have been to a QSR in the last 24 hours at any given point.

Dana Worth:

04:54

So look, you know, the great thing that the QSR industry has done is built, built the rails, right? They’ve built– uh they have the store footprint, they have the labor footprint, they have the training operational procedures to allow you to get big very fast. And that’s why it’s always been interesting to me to try to get our product in there. Now of course you have to have a product that delivers what consumers want. So it has to be delicious. It has to be at a price point that makes sense for people and makes them feel like they’re getting a good value out of what they’re buying. That partnership with Burger King, we’ve been talking to, to many folks for a long time, but we really, really liked Burger King for several reasons. One is, you know, they are a challenger brand and they are excited to move fast and do to do things a little bit off script which is very similar to the startup mentality.

Dana Worth:

05:41

And you know, we went from really having our first serious Burger King conversations in the fall of last year to being on menu with a test at their 70 stores in St. Louis on April 1st of this year of 2019. Which for those of you who are familiar with the industry, that is remarkable speed for rolling out a new menu item. And that was, you know, I attribute as much to our speed as a startup as to their speed as, as a company and their ability to really, when they set their mind to something, really move fast. I mean, we had some incredible jam sessions on product, on how we wanted to go to market, on creative ideas. At one point I flew to their headquarters in Miami. I flew to Miami twice in the same week to, to get things done. We were just both, both sides were really all in on seeing the opportunity and I give them a huge amount of credit for that. And as you, as you mentioned, it’s paid off for them.

Zach Goldstein:

06:33

It’s amazing. It’s an amazing story. And you’re right, that kind of pace of innovation is largely unheard of industry-wide. As you think about who are the people that are purchasing the Impossible Whopper or Impossible Burgers more broadly? Is it new people coming to these brands? Is it cannibalizing existing sales? I mean that’s one of the questions that people are asking. And the answer may be a little of both and unknown, but as you see it longterm, how much of it’s cannibalization? How much of it’s net new customers coming for the diversity? How do you think about that trade off as a restaurant?

Dana Worth:

07:08

I think it’s a, it’s a great question and one that I get asked all the time when I’m going out to sell, sell new restaurants. One of the things that’s really interesting is, you know, we launched April 1st in St. Louis, we had a series of regional tests and then we went nationwide in early August. So Burger King’s quarterly earnings for Q3 actually represent some of the partial quarter for the, for the nationwide rollout. And while the St. Louis test was a huge success, what’s interesting to me is that the nationwide launch has been as well, because you know, it’s one thing to say, “Hey, we can pour a lot of media attention onto a relatively concentrated spot and make that pop.” It’s another thing to say over Burger King’s 7,200 stores nationwide, that we’re seeing sales across the board. So to your question, you know who, who are these people. You know, in many ways they’re in many ways, they’re reflective of America, right? We, Burger King has stores in every state from Alaska to Hawaii to Florida, to Maine and has customers of all different types. And so what’s exciting is that we’re finding that the Impossible Whopper has, has broad appeal. That being said, there’s actually been some third party research that’s out there that you can find publicly analyzing credit card data for folks who are consuming the Impossible Whopper. And what they’re finding is that these are largely incremental transactions to Burger King. They’re largely uh higher ticket transactions for Burger King and they are bringing in a demograph- a desirable demographic of folks who have more disposable income. And so that’s been exciting for, for BK as well.

Zach Goldstein:

08:45

Q and A with the restaurant industry’s leading disruptor. This is Food Fighters, the podcast.

Zach Goldstein:

08:53

As you talked about at the beginning of the podcast one of the parts of the mission of Impossible is removing that dependency on, on meat and animal products. And I’m wondering as you think about the demographic that’s buying the product, that is, that is rushing to the various different restaurants where you can get the Impossible Burger. Is that the reason they’re doing it? Is it diversity of flavor? Is it health what, what’s driving people to try this? And, and what makes you believe that it’s more than trial and a longterm sustainable switch for most of those consumers?

Dana Worth:

09:27

Yeah, I think the answer is “yes” to all of those things. And one of the things that is central to our thesis is letting the market work right? And it’s incumbent on us to deliver a product that that excels and exceeds consumer expectations on whatever dimension it is that they care about. So we have some consumers who are there for the health benefits. So there are folks who are watching their cholesterol and are excited that we have a zero cholesterol product. Right? They love burgers. This allows them to, to not worry as much about their cholesterol. We have some folks who are there for the animal, the animal rights part. We have some folks who are there for the environmental part. We have some folks that are there because they are, you know, they’re int– they’re foodies and this is something that’s interesting and they, and they came in for the first time because they saw the Impossible Burger promoted by a celebrity in their Instagram feed.

Dana Worth:

10:16

But we’ve seen time and time again that people will not sacrifice when something doesn’t taste good. And that’s why, you know, only less than 10% of the country is vegetarian. You know, people know that these issues are important, but food is just so important, so central to people’s lives every day that it’s very hard to ask people to make changes even if they kind of know cerebrally that they should. So it’s been important to us from the very beginning to deliver something that just tastes great. And then people come back for all sorts of other reasons cause they get that stuff for free, so to speak. They get that without having to make, make a compromise. So to your, you know, your answer, why do people – who’s trying it? I think it’s, I think it’s a relatively broad cross section of folks. I think it’s people with all different reasons. And the nice thing is the product delivers on all of those reasons. You don’t have to, you don’t have to buy into all the reasons if you just choose one. And then in terms of sustainability, you know, I think what we’re seeing on the Burger King results for example, is that people are coming back again and again. This wasn’t a one time pop and media event in April in St. Louis. We’re able to sustain that into into real earnings call level results for our customers.

Zach Goldstein:

11:25

A lot of the businesses you’re selling into are so margin constrained. They’re so focused on operating with tight margins that they’re generally trying to limit food costs. And yet today the Impossible Burger is a, is a premium product and in many cases is being sold at a premium price. Is that the longterm goal and strategy? Is that going to change over time? Are there more products in the offering that are coming soon that might have a different dynamic? How do you fit into the, into the broader margin and cost discussion for a restaurant, whether it’s a QSR or a casual dining or fine dining restaurant?

Dana Worth:

12:00

Yeah, so our goal – it all comes back to the mission, which is to be everywhere where animal products are sold today. And to do that, we have to bring our prices down. So it is by no means the longterm goal to be a premium priced product. That is an artifact of the fact that we are small. And you know, with our small scale comes higher cost of production. As we scale, we fully intend to bring those, those costs down. We’re already seeing actually those costs come down. And we don’t intend to maintain that as a, as a premium price to the consumer. Simply wouldn’t support the mission to do it any other way. So yes, you’re, you’re correct that actually right now, you know, our customers are able to support a price premium, in most cases to the consumer.

Dana Worth:

12:43

And we’re finding that the consumers are willing to pay that. And so while they, while our customers might see some percentage margin compression, in many cases they’re actually seeing dollar margin expansion. But over the longterm, you know, we want to be, we want to be positioned in a way that fits into the existing restaurant business model in a way that allows them to drive margin expansion actually over the longterm.

Zach Goldstein:

13:05

That, that point about dollar margin expansion is, is huge. Because at the end of the day, that’s obviously what drives the ability to reinvest in, in the brand. And, and one of the things that we’re seeing is an absolute effort by restaurants to drive increases in customer lifetime value. It’s a competitive market. Margins are under pressure from labor, margins are under pressure from delivery. How do you get someone coming back more often and often there’s been a question of a veto vote. It sounds like this is well beyond veto vote. This is not only converting people who, who are regulars but it’s creating a reason for them to come back over and over again because it’s something new and, and the industry doesn’t have a whole lot of new product innovation coming from the food world.

Dana Worth:

13:51

Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of customers we talked to at first think that it’s going to be a veto vote thing. And just to explain to your listeners what that means, you know that you’ve got a group of four or five people. One person is vegetarian or has some reason that they don’t want the offerings in that restaurant and so they bring the whole group elsewhere. We hear that a lot from partners early on that as you rightly assessed, as they get into it, they realize that’s not the case at all.

Dana Worth:

14:16

That you were talking about totally net new customers talking about you know, solo diners. I was, I was in the Denver airport two nights ago at the Qdoba in the central concourse there. And so these are all solo travelers, people traveling alone, no issue of veto vote. And the three people in line in front of me all ordered the Impossible Burrito bowl. And you know, I don’t know exactly what their motivations were, but you know, presumably it’s, it’s a product they’ve had before they knew what they wanted. They may even come to Qdoba, especially on a trip that they wouldn’t have made before because of that offering.

Zach Goldstein:

14:46

That is such a neat experience. You know, it’s a neat experience for me as a, as a technology founder, watching consumers engage with our technology. And as a, as you think about standing in line at Denver away from home, watching people literally order the food product that you’ve brought to market that’s just a really cool experience for you personally.

Dana Worth:

15:08

Yeah, it was great and kudos to Qdoba. They’re… The guys working the line were asking people if they wanted to try Impossible.

Zach Goldstein:

15:15

Well, that feels good. That makes your life a lot easier. You can, you can tell a winning story when you’ve got the people on the ground actively pushing it.

Dana Worth:

15:22

Absolutely.

Zach Goldstein:

15:22

That brings us to, to you. Some people have been as we call it, Food Fighters. They’ve been in the industry forever. And others stumbled into it and fell in love with the food and restaurant industry, um over time. Wh- how did you end up in this role? Right? You talked about selling the first brand and now expanding to national partnerships left and right. But was this, was this your dream to sell Impossible Burgers across the country or did you stumble into it?

Dana Worth:

15:51

Yeah, I’m more of a stumble in a character. So for me it’s always been important to work on problems that impact every single human on the planet. And you know, I think there’s only a few systems where that’s the case. You know, the food system, certainly. But you know, the energy system, the transportation system the money system; I actually came from, from PayPal you know, which is, you know, one of those big systems that everyone on the planet touches every day in most cases. But what really fascinated me about food was a few things. One, is you’re not only is every, every person on the planet, a consumer multiple times a day but there’s another 2 billion people on the planet who are producers into the system. And so I, I, you know, they’ve gotten to an, I can’t imagine a system that touches more human beings and more ways on a daily basis than the food system.

Dana Worth:

16:38

And I pair that with, it’s also one of the most antiquated systems on the planet. You know, the, the cow, the primary meat production technology that we use, hasn’t changed in 10,000 years. And when you think about it that way the, the technical- technologist in me says, man, this, this is probably ripe for, ripe for some change. So when I came across Impossible and realized that they were interested in tackling this, this big, big problem, and also that they were interested in tackling it in a very scientific way, that really appealed to me. You know, I first visited the lab here in Redwood City and saw that, there was real science going on. There was, you know, people in the lab inventing stuff. And this wasn’t about creating a different a different pricing model or a different way to go to market. This was, this was real true innovation. And that, that really intrigued me. I’ve loved, always loved working with kind of hardcore technology but really, you know, physical world technology, not not software as much. And this was really up my alley. And that’s an opportunity to to join up with the company before we brought our first product to market and really help guide what this should look like commercially.

Zach Goldstein:

17:43

And, and the rest is history as they say. I was at the NRA show earlier this year and I can guarantee that your booth was the absolute most packed across the entire Chicago convention center landscape. People are flocking to try Impossible Burgers. And I saw a lot of people even then going back for seconds. So that’s big money for restaurants that have been looking for reasons to get people to come back over and over again.

Dana Worth:

18:10

Absolutely.

Zach Goldstein:

18:12

So this has been great, Dana. I think the, the Impossible Burger is a success story in terms of innovation and bringing technology to the restaurant industry. How does this future evolve? What does success look like when Impossible Burger has spread, not just to the first couple of brands that you’ve talked to, but is ubiquitous and everywhere. What’s different about the food system, about restaurants, about the world when Impossible Foods has achieved its mission?

Dana Worth:

18:39

Yeah, that’s a great question. You know, we as, as, as I’ve said a few times, we want to be everywhere, right? And that means every product category, that means every country, that means every restaurant type. And we, we’ve got a lot of work to do to get there. We’re fortunate to have great investors and great support and a great team here to get there. And that’s, you know, we’ve publicly stated that we want to have eliminated the use of animals in the food supply chain by 2035, 16 years from now. And I know that sounds crazy to most people, but I really think it’s achievable and there are some precedents, right? We moved from a horse-based transportation economy to an automobile-based transportation economy in about 20 years. And the reason why was because the automobile came along and it, it delivered on what people needed in a better way than the horse.

Dana Worth:

19:25

And it wasn’t that people wanted to use horses to get from point a to point B. They just had no alternative. And literally the same things happening here across the plant based industry. Right. this isn’t, you know, we think of our competition has as animal products, not other plant based meat products and not other cellular agriculture products either. So I think the world that we envision by 2035 is one where it will seem insane that we used to use a 10,000 year old technology to to make meat that our kids will think, won’t even be able to comprehend why we did that. I think that we will have, will be able to start to turn the tide or we will start to turn the tide on climate change. This is one of the few technologies that actually has the ability to roll back climate change because by using substantially less land to produce animal feed and to graze animals, we can actually restore land to its native state and become carbon sinks. So we can actually reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. And which is something that we, that we need to do critically right now to, to turn back the effects of climate change. So I envision a an industry that is where this is totally normal and I actually don’t think it’s going to take that long. And I envision a planet that is healthier than, than ours is today.

Zach Goldstein:

20:39

That is a vision we can all be excited about in the restaurant industry, seeing this type of innovation with that type of mission should be exciting for restaurant operators uh consumers, uh and of course you and your team at Impossible that we are excited to see what comes next. So Dana, thanks so much for joining us on Food Fighters, talking about your food fight. And frankly, it’s, it’s broader than that. It’s a global food fight and the change you’re trying to bring forward and keep on fighting. We appreciate the time today.

Dana Worth:

21:09

Thanks Zach, great to be with you.

Zach Goldstein:

21:12

You’ve been listening to Food Fighters with me, Zach Goldstein. To subscribe to the podcast or to learn more about our featured guest, visit thanx.com/food-fighters. That’s “Thanx” spelled T H A N X.com/food-fighters. This podcast is a production of Thanx, the leading CRM and digital engagement solution for restaurants. Until next time, keep fighting Food Fighters.