Plant-based meat producer Impossible Foods is teaming up with a number of celebrity chefs and their restaurants to kick off its expansion into Canada.
The company is already established in some Asian regions, but the latest foray closer to home will make Canada the company's second-largest market outside of the U.S.
"There's been a cry for us to eventually serve this market," David Lee, CFO of Impossible Foods, told Cheddar on Wednesday.
Impossible Foods claims the vast majority of its customers are meat-eaters, and it works hard to make its products accessible to them.
"Nine out of 10 of our customers are self-avowed carnivores, and that means where they go is where we need to be," Lee said. "You've seen us increase our retail grocery business from 150 locations at the start of the year to over 10,000 today, and launch our own direct-to-consumer business because that's what the meat-eater demands."
So far this year, Impossible Foods has secured deals with major grocery store chains like Walmart, Trader Joe's, and Publix.
While plant-based competitor Beyond Meat plans to open a production facility in Shanghai, Lee says he doesn't consider the company to be its main rival.
"We believe our competition is actually meat made from an animal," Lee said. "The market opportunity for this trillion-plus dollar meat industry is one where there are plenty of room for a rising tide of great brands."
While Impossible Foods doesn't currently have its own presence on mainland China, the company has entered Asian markets like Hong Kong, Singapore, and Macau.
"We wanted to start in the places that are known for being gateways to the rest of Asia," Lee said.
"It's an important market and we will be there eventually."
An independent watchdog within the IRS reports that while taxpayer services have vastly improved, the agency is still too slow to resolve identity theft cases. And National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins says those delays are “unconscionable.” Erin M. Collins said in the report released Wednesday that overall the 2024 filing season went smoothly, though IRS delays in resolving identity theft victim assistance cases are worsening. It took nearly 19 months to resolve self-reported identity theft cases as of January, and Wednesday's report states that now it takes 22 months to resolve these cases.
Amazon.com Inc. surpassed $2 trillion in market value for the first time in afternoon trading on Wednesday. The push higher for Amazon’s stock market valuation comes a little more than a week after Nvidia hit $3 trillion and briefly became the most valuable company on Wall Street. Nvidia’s chips are used to power many AI application and its valuation has soared as a result. Amazon has also been making big investments in AI as global interest has grown in the technology. Most of the company’s focus has been on business-focused products.
Climate change doesn’t just mean more extreme weather – it also leads to billions of dollars in lost productivity, tourism, and stresses infrastructure.
