SUPPLY CHAIN OF IMPOSSIBLE BURGER

The supply chain is known as a network between a company and its suppliers to produce
and distribute a specific product or service. The steps include moving and transforming raw
materials into finished products, transporting those products, and distributing them to the
end-user.
RAW MATERIALS
The Impossible Burger is a product of Impossible Foods that uses plant based products
instead of beef to create a burger. They were created in 2011, and are motivated to
transition the hamburger industry to strictly plant based foods. The Impossible Burger
attempts to mimic a “real” meat hamburger, but instead of using meat, they apply a mix of
plant based materials such as soy proteins, coconut oils, sunflower oils, and natural flavors
to give the burger the feel of a meat burger. One of their biggest accomplishments being
their use of heme, from soybeans, to imitate the blood of a real cow based burger. There are
more raw materials that go into the production of the burger than just the contents of the
burger: the acquisition of coconut, sunflower and soy requires processing by machines in
factories to separate the needed parts, the use of plastics to package the burger, as well as
the petroleum in trucks used for distribution.
The company advertises actively that their burgers are made mostly from soybeans, as it is
their most important and prominent ingredient to make their burgers. Soybeans are grown
in tropical and temperate regions, where 80% of soybeans are grown in the United States,
Argentina and Brazil. The soybeans that are used for the protein isolate are treated with
glyphosate, a pesticide. The plant is then harvested by a combine, which runs on oil, and
then moved to trucks to be transported. After the soybeans are harvested, they are
transported by truck if they are from the U.S. or by ship if from Argentina or Brazil.
One of the other most prominent ingredients in an Impossible Burger, is sunflower oil.
Sunflower oil is derived from the seeds of sunflowers that are grown on a farm. Ukraine
and Russia lead the production of sunflowers in the world for the use to make sunflower
oil, making 11 and 10.6 millions of tonnes respectively. Sunflower oil is put on ships to be
transported to the main factory locations in the United States.
Another major piece of an Impossible Burger is coconut oil. Coconut oil comes from
coconuts, which grow on trees in tropical conditions. A lot of coconuts are grown in Asian
countries, and we can find worldatlas.com ranks the top five producers of coconuts in this
order: Indonesia, Philippines, India, Brazil, Sri Lanka. Coconuts are harvested off of trees
as they fall off, and then taken on ships to factories to be compressed into oil. The coconut
oil is separated from the meat of the coconut, and then ready to be used.
MANUFACTURING PROCESS
The next step after acquiring these raw materials is the manufacturing, processing, and
combining of these materials to make a burger. Soybeans are processed into soybean
protein isolate This takes no extra raw materials, but prepares the soybean for the burger.
Once this is complete, it is now ready to be added to the burger. The sunflower seeds are
removed from the sunflower head, and then pressed to become an oil. Coconuts are also
processed in a similar manner, where they are pressed to release the oils from the meat,
creating coconut oil. All of this is then combined together in the end in the factory, to create
the Impossible Burger. After being wrapped and packaged in plastic and cardboard, the
product is ready for its next journey.
TRANSPORTATION
Next step in the life cycle of the burger, is transportation. Transportation for the Impossible
Burger is worldwide, as “Currently, the Impossible Burger is available in the United States,
Hong Kong, Macau, and Singapore”. Therefore, they need trucks and ships to transport the
product. One major raw material that is within the realm of the Impossible Burger
transportation, is the oil that powers the ships and diesel engines of the semi-trucks. Oil is
harvested straight out of the earth, and then purchased in bulk for the cargo ships and then
semi trucks refill at gas stations. An immense amount of oil is needed to fuel the
transportation of the products, which has major drawbacks and environmental effects. It is
essentially the only raw material needed to transport the burger.

REUSABILITY AND RECYCLABILITY

A major part of a product's life cycle is its reusability and recyclability. The Impossible
Burger is an edible product, so it doesn’t really have any reusability within itself besides
energy conversions. As well as one of the only real left over parts of the burger is fecal
matter, besides the parts of the raw materials that aren't used, such as sunflower stems and
coconut shell and meat. The plastics cannot be recycled because they have food
contamination on them. The cardboard can be reused multiple times to transport large
quantities of product, as it is not being broken down or contaminated in the distribution
process. All in all, the Impossible Burger is a consumable product, therefore it does not
have a major theme of reusing and recycling its raw materials, because they are all
consumed. Staple life cycle phases are reused, such as farms, trucks, ships, cardboard and
the machines used to process the food, but the raw materials have no reusability factor.
WASTE AND EMISSIONS
The final step in the life cycle of a product, is its waste and emissions. Once again, the
Impossible Burger itself as a food item, has minimal waste, besides fecal matter which
enters the sewage system and is discarded in that manner. However there is waste at every
step along the way to the final product. In the very beginning during the acquisition of the
raw materials, the pesticide that is added to one of the farms of soybeans creates lots of
carbon dioxide emissions. More waste is also created in the harvesting step, for example
when the sunflowers are harvested, they only use the head of the sunflower, not the stem.
The excess is then wasted, as it has no purpose in the production of the Impossible Burger.
Same goes for the coconut oil, where the coconut is compressed to make the oil, so the left
over parts of the coconut are wasted.
Shifting from food waste, most of the waste in the life cycle of the Impossible Burger
comes from manufacturing and transportation. The transportation of the raw materials and
the distribution of the burger uses and immense amount of oil, a non-renewable resource.
The crude oil used in diesel engines causes immense gas emissions, including carbon
dioxide. These trucks drive cross-country to deliver to factories, restaurants and grocery
stores.