Air New Zealand is giving customers a taste of the future with a new inflight collaboration with Silicon Valley food tech start-up Impossible Foods.

Air New Zealand is the first in the world to serve the award-winning, plant-based Impossible Burger which is now available as part of its Business Premier menu on flights from Los Angeles to Auckland.

Impossible Burger’s magic ingredient is an iron-containing molecule called heme which comes from the roots of soy plants.

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.