The plant-based seafood market is gaining momentum as consumers become more conscious of their impact on the environment. While there are many meat alternatives readily available, plant-based seafood is not so readily available. However, according to the Good Food Institute (GFI), the US market saw a 53% growth in dollar and unit sales for plant-based seafood last year, indicating that the trend is set to continue. Despite this growth, the quality of plant-based seafood products is not yet up to par, which needs to be addressed to lift the industry to the mainstream.
Kianti Figler, founder and CEO of Dutch start-up, Upstream Foods, believes that taste is the most crucial factor that needs to be improved to drive innovation in the market. Flavour is the top reason consumers would choose plant-based seafood, according to TURF (total unduplicated reach and frequency) analyses, followed by overfishing reduction, and its impact on plastic waste reduction.
To improve taste, Upstream Foods is developing cultivated fish fat for the plant-based seafood market. The company takes cells from salmon, turns them into a proprietary cell line, cultivates the cells in a bioreactor, and then, in partnership with an industry player, combines the fat with a plant-based matrix. Upstream Foods’ solution is founded on cellular agriculture, and the company is currently optimizing its salmon cell line and establishing its process at lab-scale. Cost of production is the critical challenge the industry is facing; therefore, Upstream Foods plans to scale its process first to 30L and then onto 100L scale, with the aspiration of being on the market within the next four years.
While Upstream Foods CEO would prefer to market the product first to the EU, she foresees Novel Foods submission to the European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) being too time-consuming. Novel Foods submission will likely take a minimum of nine months, and even up to 18 months or longer to get approval. Upstream Foods has already developed a proof of concept with global plant-based seafood players and plans to file for regulatory approval in the US after its next round of fundraising.
