Close-up shot of the Impossible Foods Company’s product Impossible Burger in Walnut Creek, California, January 11, 2021. | Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images
A San Francisco federal appeals court upheld a decision by the Food and Drug Administration to allow Impossible Foods to use “heme,” the additive the company says makes its products “taste like meat.”
Had Impossible Foods lost this legal battle, it could have dealt a heavy blow to the company. Genetically engineered heme is what sets its products apart from other competitors like Beyond Meat that don’t use the ingredient.
The FDA used a weaker legal standard than it should have to approve the use of heme, the nonprofit Center for Food Safety argued in a lawsuit it filed last year. It said the FDA made its decision based on safety standards for food additives rather than on…
