Impossible Foods hires former Apple creative director Steve Turner, who helped launch some of the tech giant's most iconic products

• Impossible Foods has hired former Apple creative director Steve Turner to oversee marketing.
• Turner worked at Apple for 11 years, often alongside Apple cofounder Steve Jobs.
• The plant-based burger startup plans to go public within a year, sources told Reuters.

Plant-based burger company Impossible Foods has hired Steve Turner from Apple, where he was global executive creative director.

Turner is now Impossible Foods' chief experience officer, a new role, and will lead the company's marketing.

He worked at Apple for 11 years, often alongside Apple founder Steve Jobs on some of the company's most iconic tech, including the iPod and iPhone.

Turner now reports to the CEO and founder of Impossible Foods, Dr Pat Brown. He would oversee all aspects of the startup's marketing and customer experience, Impossible Foods said.

Turner joins amid reports that the company is exploring options to go public through an IPO, or by merging with a blank-check company, in the next 12 months. It could be valued at $10 billion if it went public, sources told Reuters last week.

Founded in 2011, the company manufactures soy-based burgers and sausages, emitting less carbon than in animal agriculture. It was valued at $4 billion at its last private funding round in March 2020.

Competitor Beyond Meat has a market cap of more than $8 billion, with shares trading more than 400% higher than its 2019 IPO price.

In 2020, Impossible got its flagship product, the Impossible Burger, into 2,100 Walmart stores. Its burgers are also sold in Kroger, Trader Joe's, and Stop and Shop.

The company is currently searching for a new global headquarters in the San Francisco Bay Area to accommodate its expanding team, having doubled its headcount last year.