What’s the beef?

Air NZ cops political flak for plant-based burger

Passengers in Business Premier aboard Air New Zealand’s NZ1 and NZ5 flights to Los Angeles will be chowing down on Impossible Burgers, featuring new engineered plant-based synthetic meat from a US-based startup — a first for an airline.

“Impossible Burger’s magic ingredient is an iron-containing molecule called heme which comes from the roots of soy plants,” says the Kiwi carrier. “The heme in the Impossible Burger is the same as the heme found in animal meat. The result is a plant-based burger patty that cooks, smells and tastes like beef but contains no animal products whatsoever.”