Impossible Foods expands vegan offerings to meatballs

Impossible Foods just added vegan meatballs to its ever-expanding repertoire.

The Bay Area food tech giant, best known for its bleeding Impossible Burger, is on a roll. The meatballs are the company’s third new product to hit grocery stores in just four months, following a vegan pork sausage and soy-based chicken nuggets.

While the previous two releases saw Impossible attempting to replicate new animal meats, Impossible Meatballs are simply a seasoned combination of its beef- and pork-like products, Impossible Burger and Impossible Sausage. They’re available at Walmart stores this month, with plans for them to hit other retailers later this year.

Impossible Meatballs come pre-formed and fully cooked in the frozen aisle. A 14-ounce package costs $6.48 and comes with 12 grams of protein from soy. The price point is similar to that of animal-based meatballs.

The Chronicle sampled the meatballs and found them, like the rest of Impossible’s products, extremely similar to the real thing. They’re slightly dry, which is common with frozen meatballs, and easily remedied with tomato sauce or spiced yogurt.

Impossible’s skyrocketing popularity has become synonymous with the Bay Area’s plant-based food-innovation movement. After first releasing its burger with famous chefs like Traci Des Jardins in 2016, it slowly grew to become available at thousands of restaurants nationwide. The patties eventually became available to home cooks last year at Bay Area grocery stores, and now Impossible Burger is sold at 22,000 stores across the country.