Obama’s Meatless Birthday Menu to Feature Brands Impossible Foods, Eat Just

(Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama’s upcoming birthday celebration will offer a meat-free menu, according to people familiar with the matter, giving buzzy plant-based brands like Impossible Foods Inc. and Eat Just Inc. a high-profile endorsement.

The menu was coordinated by musician Questlove, an advocate of and investor in meat-free foods, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private plans. It wasn’t immediately clear if there will be a separate menu with animal-meat options.

Guests at the scaled-back affair will be able to choose from items like Spam Musubi made with Impossible’s faux-beef and faux-pork and Eat Just’s plant-based eggs, according to menu plans viewed by Bloomberg News. Other offerings include Questlove’s Cheesesteak Eggrolls, made with Impossible “beef” and “cheese sauce” from Perfect Day Inc., a Berkeley, California-based startup making dairy proteins without animals.

Vegan food is becoming increasingly popular as awareness of the impact of animal agriculture on the environment grows. The 2020 Golden Globes featured a vegan menu, as will the 2021 Met Gala, a major fashion-industry event, Bon Appetit reported this week. Eleven Madison Park in New York City, one of the most famous restaurants in the world, is now completely plant-based.

Obama’s event, which will take place this weekend on Martha’s Vineyard, had been set to host hundreds of guests. But concerns over the spread of the delta variant of Covid-19 led organizers to scale back the guest list to just close friends and family.

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