Blind tasting strips away the branding that makes food claims hard to judge. Nectar’s 2025 Taste of the Industry study put 122 plant-based meats before 2,684 omnivores in restaurant settings, with each product evaluated by at least 100 people. A product earned a TASTY Award only when at least half of tasters liked it as much as or more than its animal benchmark. These 11 U.S.-facing winners cleared that bar.
Impossible’s Burger
Among the five burger brands that met Nectar’s winner threshold was Impossible Foods. That means at least half of the blind tasters assigned its burger an overall-liking score equal to or higher than the conventional burger benchmark. The public results do not assign first through fifth place, so the award supports winner status without claiming Impossible finished first.
Beyond Meat’s Burger
The burger category also included Beyond Meat as a qualifier. The result is stronger than a staffer’s recommendation because participants did not know which product they were sampling. It does not prove every taster preferred Beyond, and it applies to the formula served during the study rather than every past or future version.
MorningStar Farms’ Burger
The burger winner list also included MorningStar Farms alongside Impossible, Beyond, Heura and Redefine Meat. The public award page identifies the winning brand and category, not a ranked order among winners. That distinction matters because several qualifying products can clear the same benchmark without tying for a single top score.
Impossible’s Chicken Nuggets
Only two chicken-nugget brands won in the 2025 awards, and Impossible Foods was one of them. Nuggets were already a strong format in Nectar’s 2024 research, when the plant-based category average outperformed the conventional chicken-nugget benchmark. The 2025 award confirms that Impossible again cleared the individual-product threshold.
MorningStar Farms’ Chicken Nuggets
MorningStar Farms was the other chicken-nugget winner. Both brands were evaluated against an animal-based comparison rather than only against meat-free competitors. That makes the result useful for shoppers who care about how closely a substitute competes with the familiar food it is designed to replace.
Gardein’s Breakfast Sausage Patties
One of two breakfast-sausage-patty awards went to Gardein. The award means Gardein met the same-or-better threshold with at least half of its blind tasters. It does not show that every participant preferred Gardein or mistook it for pork.
Impossible’s Breakfast Sausage Patties
The breakfast-sausage winner list paired Gardein with Impossible Foods. The test measured overall liking, which combines the eating experience rather than asking only whether a product could fool someone. A winner can therefore taste satisfying without being indistinguishable from the conventional benchmark.
Impossible’s Hot Dog
For hot dogs, Impossible Foods was the sole winner published for the 2025 awards. That means it was the only tested brand in the category to clear the public winner threshold. The award page does not publish a runner-up order or show that Impossible led every sensory measure.
Impossible’s Meatballs
The meatball winner page likewise names only Impossible Foods. Each tested product received ratings from at least 100 consumers, providing a broader base than a small editorial tasting. The result supports a measured claim: this meatball performed competitively with the study’s conventional benchmark under blind conditions.
Tofurky’s Turkey Deli Slices
Tofurky was one of two winners for turkey-style deli slices. Because brand and packaging were hidden, familiarity with Tofurky could not directly lift its scores. The award reflects the sample served, though shoppers should still check whether the retail formula has changed since testing.
Prime Roots’ Turkey Deli Slices
Prime Roots was the second turkey-deli winner. Nectar did not publish the two brands as first and second on the winner page; both simply surpassed the qualifying standard. That is enough to call the product a blind-test winner without inventing a head-to-head ranking the public results do not provide.
Trust the Method More Than the Package
Blind results offer a useful snapshot, not a permanent seal of superiority. Recipes change, retailers carry different versions and a threshold award does not mean unanimous preference. The durable insight is that transparent methods tell shoppers far more than front-of-package promises: who tasted the food, what they compared it with and how a winner was defined.