BY DAVID MALONEY, EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
THE DC VELOCITY Q&A THOUGHTLEADERS
WHEN YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FORthe supply chain of a company knownfor making the impossible possible, youstrive to do a little magic of your ownto keep up with growth that last year alonerequired the quadrupling of your company’s supplychain capacity.
Sheetal Shah joined Impossible Foods in May 2019 assenior vice president, product and operations, where hedirects several mission-critical business units, includingproduct, operations, manufacturing, supply chain, andlogistics. Impossible Foods makes plant-based foods thattaste like and compete with meat. The product that isprobably most familiar to consumers is the ImpossibleWhopper found at Burger King restaurants. The companyhas been growing quickly, thanks to new products including Impossible Pork and partnerships that get them tomarket.
Before joining Impossible, Shah was chief operations officer at electronic-payment technology company Verifone,where he oversaw global operations and the company’ssupply chain. He also served in various managementroles at Motorola Mobility, where he began his career asa software engineer. He spoke recently with DC VELOCITYEditorial Director David Maloney.
Q As a company, Impossible Foods states that its goal is to compete against beef from cows in the areas of taste,
nutrition, sustainability, convenience, and affordability.
What does all that mean, and how does it shape the way
your company goes to market?
AOne of the great things about Impossible Foods is the passion for our mission, which is to end animal agriculture as a food source by the year 2035. We are working on meat today in the form of the Impossible Burger,Impossible Pork, and Impossible Sausage, but over time, wewill work on dairy and fish products as well because that isthe only way we are going to achieve our mission.
QSo how do you get a vegetable product to taste like a hamburger?
AWhen our founder, Pat Brown, decided to tackle this, he wanted to create a product without compromise.
That means that right from the ingredients that we select,
Sheetal Shah of Impossible Foods
discusses the supply chain behind thefast-growing meatless burger brand.INTERVIEW WITH
SHEETAL SHAHMaking the
Impossiblepossible
