Alternative Seafood: Sushi from the laboratory – style

Nothing beats trying things out in the kitchen. And that’s why this text has to start with a couple of small, golden-brown breaded cuboids that slowly roast in a well-oiled pan and become very crispy. In fact, you soon spread a strangely familiar scent in the kitchen that you haven’t experienced in a long time, but that immediately takes you back decades. Now just add mashed potatoes, a few pinches of lemon juice – the happiness of children is ready. Under the breading, however, there is no coalfish, but black salsify. The fish sticks aren’t actually fish sticks at all. But first things first: they taste really good.

From fishing substitute products, that is only a perceived truth, one still hears surprisingly rarely. Vegan meat alternatives have long left their niche in health food stores and conquered supermarkets, takeaways and restaurants in the form of tofu sausages, veggie burgers and seitan kebabs. Trend: still rising strongly. In 2021, production was 98,000 tons, 17 percent higher than in the previous year and even more than 62 percent higher than in 2019. A win for both animal welfare and the climate. Because if you eat vegan, you save almost half of the carbon dioxide produced by your diet. But what about fish now?

Growing demand: on average, each person eats 20.5 kilograms of fish per year

In any case, there are plenty of reasons to look for alternatives: According to figures from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), global fish consumption is 178 million tons per year, which means that each person eats 20.5 kilos. Tendency for the expected ten billion people in the world in 2050: also rising sharply. According to the environmental organization WWF, more than 35 percent of stocks worldwide are already considered overfished today, and in the Mediterranean and Black Seas the figure is even more than 63 percent. But how can our needs be replaced?

Some cooks think it’s just habit. “Once you understand that fish tastes like algae, you realize that you don’t need fish to taste the sea,” says Alexander Flohr. The 42-year-old has been vegan since 2012 and is the author of several cookbooks. His YouTube channel “Hier kocht Alex” has more than 25,000 followers. “I’ve always liked eating fish,” says the native of Rostock. “But of course I’ve given up on it over the past ten years. Even if I didn’t miss the taste extremely, I was craving the flavors that we associate with fish.”

Floor’s most recent cookbook “Vegan Ocean” is the first of its kind with purely plant-based maritime dishes. It is based entirely on the concept “algae for the taste, vegetables or legumes for the substance” and takes into account classics such as fried fish, tuna salad and shrimp cocktail as well as your own creations such as fish fillet with a walnut crust or sea buckthorn ravioli. Flohr uses white radish, artichokes and palm hearts, aubergines, mushrooms, jackfruit, rice flakes, glass noodles, silken tofu or soy flakes as “substitute products” and gives them the right taste with kombu algae, nori flakes, algae oil, seaweed, smoke aroma and fried fish spices. “I tried to keep the recipes as simple as possible,” he says, “so that as many people as possible dare to try them.” His “black caviar” made from beluga lentils tastes less like fish eggs and more like salty lentils, but the red herring salad benefits from the “learned combination” of beetroot, apple, gherkins, capers, dill and mayonnaise. The fish, which is replaced here by fried aubergine cubes, is actually not necessary.

But why, critics keep asking this question, do vegans actually recreate animal products? One could ask: Why not? The optical and tasteful proximity to well-known meat and fish dishes can make the transition to vegetarianism or veganism easier for people who eat omnivores. And: “Many vegans don’t do without animal products because they don’t like them,” says Alexander Flohr, “but for health and ethical reasons. But they really don’t want to do without the flavors and combinations they love.”

It’s easier to substitute fish than meat

The industry has also understood this. Even a trip to the supermarket shows that manufacturers have so far concentrated on a few particularly popular fish products such as salmon and tuna when it comes to vegan alternatives. Unlike meat, fish benefits from the fact that its specific (and slightly softer) texture and flavor can be replaced by a wider range of vegan options, with textures and tastes ranging from artificial to fairly authentic. Substitute smoked salmon is made from carrots or is based on starch, for example, beech wood smoke or smoked soy sauce gives it its characteristic taste. “Canned tuna” is made from soy protein, vegan salmon fillets in a lemon-herb marinade made from wheat protein. In terms of ingredients, the “Lax” from the health food store has no difficult-to-pronounce additives, while products from the conventional supermarket often contain sugars, such as maltodextrin or trehalose, which can cause intestinal problems in people without the appropriate enzyme.

The most popular fish product in Germany, however, is fish sticks, i.e. breaded Alaska pollock fillet. Everyone eats 5.2 kilos per year on average. The range of vegan alternatives here is correspondingly large: Some manufacturers replace the fish portion with a soft, almost a little pulpy mixture of rice and wheat gluten (Iglo), others rely on black salsify, jackfruit, cauliflower for “Veggie Sticks” or “Schlemmerfilet Bordelaise”. and beans (“fish from the field”). Vivera’s pleasantly spicy “Crispy Fish Sticks” replace fish with wheat protein and flour. But what makes fish fingers smell and taste so familiar is not so much the fish itself, but the breading – which makes the rice, wheat or vegetable sticks an absolutely viable alternative to the children’s classic.

Mushrooms flavored with enzymes taste like seafood

But a few breaded vegetables or grains will not save 178 million tons of fish a year. Plant-based fish alternatives currently account for a meager market share of just 0.1 percent of sales. But especially in the US, food start-ups are working to develop more alternatives to fish that are as satisfying as possible. Aqua Cultured Foods, for example, produces tuna, calamari and shrimp from fermented mycoprotein, i.e. from (largely tasteless) mushrooms. These are flavored with the help of enzymes and amino acids, which are also found in seafood. Further processing is unnecessary, as are additives, fillers or flavorings. “I really think we have the potential to replace sushi,” Anne Palermo, CEO of Aqua Cultured Foods, hoped in a recent interview with the magazine Fast Company. Two years after it was founded, your start-up, together with a Swiss holding company, is planning to initially bring the mushroom fish to the Swiss market.

Many companies are now using cell cultures: tuna fat cells under the microscope.

(Photo: BlueNalu)

Another promising alternative is cell-grown fish. For almost a decade, companies have been working to produce meat by growing tissue from animal cells in bioreactors; Start-ups have long been developing alternative seafood according to the same principle. This would not only be environmentally friendly, but also free of mercury or microplastics. Since it was founded four years ago, the San Diego-based company Blue Nalu has raised almost 85 million US dollars in capital for a “cellular aquaculture” that will primarily be used to produce blue and yellowfin tuna, competitor Wildtype from San Francisco raised $100 million for his sushi-grade salmon in a recent round of funding, thanks to celebrity backers like Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Hopes are high that lab-bred fish will replace salmon, tuna and shrimp in the foreseeable future. The catch is the manufacturing cost. For example, it was possible to reduce the price for a kilo of shrimp meat from the Shiok Meats laboratory from around 10,000 to 50 dollars within a few years. But as long as most conventional shrimp cost less, it’s still not competitive.

Alternative Seafood: Visually appealing, but problematic in terms of sales: laboratory seafood from the American company Blue Nalu.

Visually appealing, but problematic in terms of sales: laboratory seafood from the American company Blue Nalu.

(Photo: BlueNalu)

“Cell-based seafood is likely to play only a small role in the future of ocean conservation,” concludes marine biologist Benjamin Halpern, who led a 2019 University of California study. The researcher sees a major problem in the lack of market maturity of alternatives grown in the laboratory. In view of the lack of market approvals and exorbitant prices, the researcher doubts that customers will warm to the products in the near future.

Cookbook author Alexander Flohr predicts something different for vegan fish alternatives. “I see huge potential,” he says. “Both ready-made products and recipes to make yourself are very popular. Many people know how bad the oceans are and are looking for alternatives. You just have to show people that they exist first.” It would at least be a start. Albeit a small one.

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