Impossible Foods was founded in 2011 with an ambitious goal: to eliminate the need for animals in the food system by 2035. Today the company's first product, the Impossible Burger, is sold at more than 3,000 locations in the U.S. and Hong Kong.
The mounting success of the company, however, made Impossible a target for anti-science advocacy groups. One in particular, Friends of the Earth, created and distributed a dossier on Impossible that questioned the safety of the burger's key ingredient: heme. In August 2017, a reporter at the New York Times published a story that included incorrect information, questioning the safety of the Impossible Burger and the viability of its FDA GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) certification. Although Impossible Foods had established the burger as FDA GRAS in 2015 well before launching it in 2016, Impossible Foods' made the decision to pursue the ultimate standing with the FDA; a "no further questions" letter, stipulating the company had satisfied all questions on the product. Very few companies pursue and receive such a letter, but Impossible Foods' commitment to transparency mandated the process.
When Rachel Konrad — Impossible Foods' Chief Communications Officer — was first contacted by the Times' reporter about the story, she anticipated the crisis such an article would pose immediately. In one business day, she launched an integrated crisis communications strategy that would set the course for how the company would handle crises going forward.
Rachel's background as a reporter was put to excellent use in crafting a real-time response. With roles including Director of Communications at Tesla where she reported directly to Elon Musk, to a leadership role at the Associated Press, where she served as the Silicon Valley Bureau Chief for more than six years, Rachel's career had prepared her to act swiftly to address the crisis with facts and transparent, real-time communications.
Immediately following the initial inquiry from the New York Times, Rachel created a cross-functional rapid- response crisis plan that would take effect the moment the story went live on the Times' website. The primary goals of the strategy were to correct the errors and introduce the facts.
After initial attempts to reason with the journalist as well as the editors upstream, Rachel took matters into her own hands, calling on leaders from every division of the company to align on the facts and craft an accurate narrative. The group included Impossible Foods' chief scientists, communications team, business and legal teams, and most crucially, founder and CEO Pat Brown.
When the article went live on NYTimes.com on August 8th, 2017, the team was ready.
An Impossible Foods' Medium blog post written by CEO Pat Brown was published shortly after the article went live. This blog post served as a singular source for all information regarding the safety of the product and the article itself. The post also linked to a fisked version of the article that pointed out each and every error in the piece and corrected the information.
From there, the Impossible Foods' team got in touch with every reporter that wrote a story based on the original Times' article to ensure the proper corrections were made. Rachel also worked directly with top-tier journalists to publish stories that negated the false claims of the New York Times' reporter.
By the end of the news day, the true facts around the safety of the product had been shared on multiple platforms.
Impossible Foods' PR team, led by Rachel Konrad, managed to correct nearly every inaccurate article written about the brand in the wake of the inaccurate New York Times story. This included more than 160 pieces of coverage. The company also submitted an over 1,000 page document detailing every study completed on the Impossible Burger and this was published on the FDA's website for the general public's consumption.
The article did, however, mark the dawn of a new era for communications at Impossible Foods. Drafting off the huge wave of positive media coverage the company had received since launch, articles emerged from other journalists looking to produce "clickbait" news driven by flashy headlines that unfairly questioned the safety of the Impossible Burger. Rachel and the team systematically corrected every article.
The final metric of success came in July 2018, when Impossible Foods' received the long-anticipated letter from the FDA, indicating they had "No Questions" about the product. While there was never a doubt this letter would come, the team celebrated the letter as the conclusion of a chapter in the company's progress towards its mission. The media coverage that resulted when Rachel and team shared the No Questions declaration via press release and outreach generated 889 media placements with over 98% positive sentiment. The social response was also overwhelmingly positive with a reach of over 67,000 people on Instagram, and over 17,000 people on LinkedIn.
