restaurants

Impossible Foods on Tuesday launched its meatless chicken nuggets in restaurants and announced plans to bring the new offering to supermarkets by the end of the month.

In the last decade, chicken has overtaken beef as Americans’ top meat choice, making it a target for the companies like Impossible that are looking to replace or reduce consumption of animal meat. The Impossible Chicken Nuggets help the company catch up to rival Beyond Meat, which launched chicken tenders in U.S. restaurants this July, more than two years after discontinuing its original chicken alternative.

Impossible’s meatless nuggets use soy as the protein source. However, unlike its meat-free burgers and sausage, the nuggets do not contain heme, which is produced from genetically modified yeast.

While Impossible has secured approval from the Food and Drug Administration to sell products made with the additive in the United States, China and the European Union have barred its products because of that ingredient, posing a setback to its global ambitions.

To convince consumers to try the plant-based poultry alternative, Impossible is touting the nuggets’ environmental and health benefits. Based on preliminary estimates from Impossible, the nuggets use roughly 48% less land and 43% less water than chicken-based nuggets, and generate more than a third less greenhouse gas emissions. The Impossible nuggets contain 40% less saturated fat and 25% less sodium than a chicken nugget, according to the company.

Restaurant chains that will carry the poultry