Impossible Foods’ Commitment to Safety: Our Approach to Monitoring Pesticides

At Impossible Foods, health is at the heart of everything we do. We have consistently put food safety first, starting with the moment we set out to develop our flagship Impossible Beef– from thoroughly researching and obtaining FDA GRAS status for our novel soy leghemoglobin ingredient, to monitoring for potential contaminants like heavy metals, mycotoxins, and –– the topic at hand –– pesticides.

What are Pesticides? Pesticides are a broad group of substances that prevent, eliminate, or control crop-damaging pests in agriculture. As of 2021, there are over 800 pesticides that are registered for use in the United States (ref). These include: - Herbicides, which destroy or control weeds; - Insecticides, which kill or control insects; - And fungicides, which control fungi, including mold and mildew.

Pesticides have been used by farmers for thousands of years, dating as far back as 4500 years ago when ancient Sumerians used sulfur compounds to control insects and mites (ref). The flourishing of human civilization could not have occurred without the help of pesticides in food production!

While the early use of pesticides included only naturally-derived substances, inorganic synthetic pesticides came on the scene in the late 1800s – and never really left. The increased use of synthetic pesticides accelerated in the 1940s with the discovery of effective, inexpensive, and non-selective (meaning: harmful to non-target organisms) chemicals like dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane – better known as DDT. These synthetic chemicals, most notably DDT, were indiscriminately used until the adverse environmental and human health effects of such wide usage were highlighted by researchers and activists like Rachel Carson in her 1962 book, Silent Spring. Since the 1960s and 70s, research has re-focused on developing safer pesticides and policies have been enacted to prohibit wide indiscriminate use of non-selective pesticides.

How are Pesticides Regulated? Today in the United States, pesticide use is strictly controlled by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as well as agencies like the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Before any pesticide can be used, it must be registered for use through the EPA and undergo scientific review to ensure it will not pose unreasonable risks to human health or the environment. If approved and registered, the EPA also sets limits on how much of the pesticide can be used during the growing, processing, and storage of a crop, and how much can remain on the final food that reaches the consumer. This latter limit is known as the tolerance, or maximum residue limit in food. Monitoring and enforcement of tolerances is conducted by various agencies, which set a range of safety levels for human consumption, which we’ll talk about more below (stay with us, here!).

Since 1991, the USDA has systematically tested both conventionally grown and organic crops for hundreds of pesticides as part of its Pesticide Data Program (PDP) . While the PDP is a voluntary program, the USDA reports its annual findings to agencies like the EPA and FDA if there are tolerance violations – and in 2022, only 0.53 percent (56 samples) of the total samples tested (10,665 samples) were found to have residues exceeding the tolerances established by the EPA. That means over 99 percent of the samples passed the test!

Limits for Residual Pesticide Consumption Several regulatory bodies throughout the world have established limits for pesticide residues in food for human consumption, including: - The EPA; - The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations/World Health Organization (FAO/WHO); - The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA); - And the State of California, through Proposition 65 (Prop 65).

These and other agencies have set their own daily consumption limits for pesticides, including the widely used herbicide glyphosate, which is commonly used on conventionally grown soybean plants. For example, according to the EPA and FDA, an acceptable limit to residual glyphosate in food is 1.75 mg per kg of body weight per day (ref), whereas the limit set by FAO/WHO is 1 mg per kg of body weight per day (ref). On a more conservative level, California’s Prop 65 (CA Prop 65) sets “No Significant Risk Levels” (NSRL) for chemicals, limiting consumption of glyphosate to 1100 µg per day, regardless of body weight.

Impossible Foods’ Approach to Pesticides Here at Impossible, we’re fortunate that the EPA and other health organizations are already safely regulating and monitoring the levels of residual pesticides in our food. But, we also want to do our part in ensuring the safety of our consumers, so we hold ourselves responsible for further monitoring pesticides in our products.

It starts with our ingredients: before we decide to use a particular ingredient in our plant-based meat, we make sure to verify that the supplier of that ingredient complies with regulations for residual pesticide monitoring. This means that all of our suppliers have ensured that the residual pesticide levels in the ingredients we use are below the established safe upper limits.

Then, to make sure that the residual pesticide levels in our final products do not pose a safety concern, we conduct our own testing and analysis using the strictest established limit –– set by California’s Prop 65 –– to guide our own rigorous internal criteria. All results we have received thus far have come back below levels of concern.

Our Commitment to Food Safety We’ve always been transparent about our ingredients and our methods because people deserve to feel well-informed and safe about their decision to eat Impossible meat from plants. We welcome your questions at hello@impossiblefoods.com.