The four paths to viable meat alternatives.
The buzz around the veggie burgers recently debuted by Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat shows the role technology plays in widening the market for plant-based foods. Redwood City’s Impossible Foods, which has raised $182 million in funding, uses a plant-based version of heme, the compound that gives flavor and color to meat, to make its vegan burger taste beefy. Beyond Meat designed technology to turn pea protein into muscle like fibers for its patty.
Plant-based meat replacements — defined as legume- or vegetable-based versions of traditional animal foods such as Gardenburgers or Field Roast sausages — have been on the U.S. market for a century, but they’re undergoing a technological revolution of their own. One of the next-generation high-tech players is New Wave Foods, which has just come out with the first plant-based shrimp to look and taste something like the real thing.
“There’s no seafood in the plant-based meat section — maybe a crab cake,” says Xander Shapiro of New Wave Foods. “We’re going to be the first in that.”
The San Leandro company is pitching its crispy, breaded version and a “steamed” version of shrimp made with algae and pea protein to restaurants and other food-service companies. It plans to roll out the product in Northern California grocery stores in January 2018, for an estimated $5 to $7 per 10- to 12ounce bag of frozen shrimp.
The impetus comes from cofounder Dominique Barnes’ upbringing in the all-you-can-eat shrimp bonanza of Las Vegas, where a disproportionate amount of the nation’s shrimp consumption happens. Barnes went on to earn a master’s degree in marine biodiversity and conservation from Scripps Institution of Oceanography and wanted to find a way to tackle some of the vast environmental issues around seafood. Shrimp seemed like a good place to start.
The modern shrimp industry is problematic: New Wave Foods, a San Leandro company, makes plant-based steamed shrimp, above right, from algae oil, pea protein, alginate and lycopene for color.
Human trafficking and slavery, mangrove destruction, pollution and other dire issues are all tied to shrimp farmed in Asia, which makes up the majority of U.S. consumption. (American shrimp is considered a sustainable choice, but it’s nowhere near as widely consumed.) According to the National Fisheries Institute, in 2014 Americans ate 11 percent more shrimp than the previous year, and it’s the most popular seafood in the country. In China, consumption increased 123 percent between 2005 and 2015. New Wave Foods’ answer to all that is a recipe of pea protein, algae oil and alginate, a thickener. The mixture is set in molds that follow the shellfish’s tapered curve and colored with lycopene, the pigment in tomatoes. Its shrimp flavoring, though certified vegan, gives it a convincing seafood flavor and aroma. For vegans, folks with shellfish allergies and parents planning a kosher bat mitzvah, so far so good. But Barnes and co-founder Michelle Wolf recognized early on they’d have to emulate shrimp’s specific texture to really succeed: the pop, the juiciness and the slight chew at the finish. Wolf says their formula continues to change, but texture will be the real barrier to mainstream acceptance — the shrimp The Chronicle tried was dry and very firm, like a prawn that has been in the steamer 20 minutes too long. Shapiro says the company is working on a future product similar to a “cocktail shrimp” that will be plumper and juicier. He also sees a ready market for the current product, comparing it to the iPhone. “There’s always some early adapters that really want it. You get feedback and you keep adapting it,” he says. Most colleges and other large-scale food-service providers have to serve a vegan option every day, and their chefs are always looking for something new to add to a bowl of pho or stir fry. In these early, heady days of the world’s most authentic faux shrimp, buyer interest has already been expressed by UC Berkeley, the Vancouver Aquarium and, yes, a Las Vegas casino.