Little Caesars is the latest chain where you can try out meatless meat

If you’re a fan of sausage pizza, but wonder if they could be done even better — whether for health reasons, environmental ones, or just queasiness about eating intestines — you’re the target market for the new Impossible Supreme pizza at Little Caesars.

The pizza chain announced today that it is testing out pizzas with sausage from Impossible Foods, a fast-growing plant-based meat startup, at locations in Florida, New Mexico, and Washington state. CNN Business reported that Little Caesars and Impossible Foods have been working together on the sausage since October.

Impossible Foods has never sold sausage before — it’s known for its ground beef and burger offerings. It’s developed the sausage just for Little Caesars.

It’s been an incredible few months for Impossible Foods and its competitors in the plant-based meat industry.

The company announced in April it was partnering with Burger King to offer plant-based Whoppers. Early reviews — and sales — look good. Burger King joined White Castle, which sells Impossible Foods sliders, and Carl’s Jr., which sells burgers from Impossible Foods’ competitor Beyond Meat. Qdoba announced that they’d be offering the Impossible Bowl and the Impossible Taco at all their US locations.

Investors have hopped on the bandwagon. Beyond Meat’s stock surged after its IPO in early May — it initially offered its stock at $25 and is now trading at $90. Impossible Foods raised $300 million in more funding and may be looking at an IPO itself. It’ll need the new funding to keep up with the surge in demand. Right now, CNN Business reports, the company won’t have enough capacity to keep up with demand for the Impossible Supreme if Little Caesars decides to offer it in its more than 4,000 locations nationwide.

There’s a lot wrong with our food system — from animal cruelty to antibiotic resistance to its contributions to climate change. But people really like meat, and efforts to curb these problems by convincing people to switch away from meat haven’t worked well. There are about as many vegans and vegetarians as there were 20 years ago.

That’s where plant-based meat alternatives can step in. Products like veggie burgers, fake chicken, and soy and almond milk are growing in popularity and market share — and even better, they’re getting tastier and harder to distinguish from animal meat.

Impossible Foods makes its products with heme, a protein that’s cultivated from soybean roots and is credited for lending the Impossible Burger its strikingly meaty flavor. Even people who eat meat are often happy to substitute an equally tasty alternative that’s better for the world.

Beyond Meat founder Ethan Brown told my colleague Sigal Samuel that 93 percent of consumers who buy Beyond Meat also buy animal meat — and he’s fine with that. It’s a sign these products, far from being a just-for-vegans eccentricity, are going mainstream.

With the surge of consumer and restaurant interest in plant-based foods has come a surge in investment from titans of the meat industry. Last fall, Perdue Farms announced it was looking into its own plant-based products. Tyson Foods announced in February it was launching a plant-based product line. Since 2016, Tyson has also made investments in plant-based and lab-grown meat research and operations, putting money into the cell-based meat startups Memphis Meats and Future Meat Technologies Ltd. and in the plant-based meat startup Beyond Meat.

It’ll probably be a long time before these alternatives can replicate the feel of a steak — though engineers are hard at work on it. In the meantime, they’re finding their niche with burgers and ground beef, and now, sausage. Restaurants and consumers, going by the recent surge of interest, are increasingly getting on board.

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