Starbucks to Discontinue Meat-Free Breakfast Sandwich with Impossible Foods
US coffee chain Starbucks says it will remove the Impossible Breakfast Sandwich from its menu this month, ending a six-year relationship with the Californian plant-based meat pioneer.
One of the most high-profile plant-based meat collaborations is coming to an end this month.
Starbucks will phase out the Impossible Breakfast Sandwich, a vegetarian option featuring a plant-based meat patty from Impossible Foods, which has been on its US menu since 2020.
“While we no longer offer the Impossible Breakfast Sandwich, our baristas would be happy to recommend an alternative sandwich,” the company told Bloomberg, which broke the story.
“We’re proud to have partnered with Starbucks for more than six years to bring Impossible Sausage to breakfast lovers across the country,” an Impossible Foods spokesperson told Green Queen.
Impossible Breakfast Sandwich removal to worsen Starbucks’s climate impact
The Impossible Breakfast Sandwich has been a fixture on the Starbucks menu since the start of the pandemic, and has been viewed as a way to court flexitarians looking to cut back on meat.
It features an Impossible Sausage patty – made from a base of soy protein concentrate, sunflower oil, and coconut oil – topped with a cage-free egg and aged Cheddar cheese, all encased in a ciabatta bun.
The meat-free sandwich isn’t vegan-friendly, and offers 21g of protein and 3g of fibre, alongside 22g of fat (8g of which is saturated) and 420 calories.
Starbucks, which has been on a turnaround mission under CEO Brian Niccol, told Bloomberg it regularly reviews its product offering and applies “various criteria to ensure we are meeting the needs of our customers and our business”.
The chain continues to sell meat-free options like an egg, pesto and mozzarella sandwich, but centre-of-the-plate plant-based proteins will no longer be on its menu starting next month.
That said, the removal of a sustainable protein without any equivalent replacement would only worsen Starbucks’s food-related climate footprint – the Impossible Sausage Patty takes up 80% less water and 46% less land, and lowers emissions by 73%.
Tough going for meat alternatives in US restaurants
Impossible Foods has had a strong record in the foodservice field and its products are still featured on the menus of Burger King (via the Impossible Whopper), AMC Theatres and Wayback Burgers. That said, changes in Americans’ dietary habits have caused it to lose some of that momentum.
Chains like IHOP, the Cheesecake Factory, and White Castle have all done away with its meat alternatives. The latter, for instance, replaced the Impossible Burger with a veggie patty from Dr Praeger’s this year.
Plant-based meat makers have generally found it hard to get a foothold in the US foodservice channel. McDonald’s no longer sells its vegan McPlant burger – born out of a collaboration with Beyond Meat – in the country, and Beyond’s partnerships with Pizza Hut, KFC and Taco Bell were all short-lived, too.
The underlying numbers punctuate this point. Broadline distributor sales of plant proteins (including meat alternatives, tofu, tempeh and veggie burgers) in US foodservice declined by 7% in 2025.
The shift is being driven by a backlash against ultra-processed foods in the US, both from a consumer and policy perspective, as well as the government’s pro-beef stance in its new dietary guidelines. Americans who are still interested in eating plant-based would much rather eat whole foods over highly processed meat analogues.
“While the Impossible Breakfast Sandwich may no longer be on the Starbucks menu, we value our longstanding relationship and remain committed to making delicious, nutrient-dense meat from plants more accessible,” the Impossible Foods representative said.