Experts are starting to consider plant-based seafood as an emergency option with prevailing realities. The future of seafood is looking bleak as global demand keeps rising. In contrast, the oceans are experiencing ecological pressures, causing them to yield less food. Consequently, plant-based seafood alternatives are springing up to fill in for the shortfall in the real deal.
The trend of developing sustainable seafood alternatives has been a raging force since 2022. Interestingly, the movement looks promising as the beginning of a vegan fish industry.
This article is out to examine the driving force behind seafood innovations. Likewise, the methods of plant-based fish production and seafood sustainability will be considered.
Why Plant-Based Seafood Is Gaining Momentum
Multiple factors are causing alternative fish products to gain global popularity. Let’s check out a few of these factors.
Overfishing and Ecological Strain
According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), overfishing does not disrupt the blue economy alone but affects the entire ecosystem. Overfishing involves practices that deplete seafood faster than they can be naturally replenished. Several initiatives have been started to reduce the ecological impact of overfishing. One of such is advocacy for the adoption of plant-based seafood. Other solutions that are being pushed are:
- Establishment of marine protected areas
- Enforcing sustainable fishing practices and instituting fines for defaulters
- Sensitizing consumers about the implications of patronizing trawling companies that practice unsustainable fishing methods.
Mercury and Microplastic Concerns in Fish
A Nature study, like several others, has raised alarm about the potential ripple effects of mercury and microplastics on marine species. These marine pollutants alter the physiology of aquatic organisms and may even reduce their reproductive capacity. By extension, human consumers of seafood may also be affected by these marine pollutants. So, here’s another reason why more people are going for alternative fish products.
Climate-Conscious Consumers Seeking Alternatives
Similar to health-conscious consumers of seafood, some people would not indulge their palates at the expense of the planet. So, such individuals will source their seafood from stores or outlets that stock only ocean-friendly foods. The other extreme is that climate-conscious consumers may decide to boycott traditional seafood altogether. Beyond vegan seafood, such people may also complement their diet with alternative proteins, like edible insects.
Development of Realistic Seafood Texture
When plant-based seafood just broke into the food industry, the texture was nothing like the real deal. Naturally, this was a big turn-off for even advocates of vegan seafood adoption. However, emerging processing technologies like cellular agriculture and 3-D food printing have made it more feasible to mimic the muscle structure of various seafood.
These are some of the most prominent reasons for the ongoing adoption of plant-based fish.
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How Plant-Based Seafood Is Made
The production of plant-based seafood largely involves slapping together three major components. The protein base, texturing agent and flavor components are the most important components of plant-based fish. Common sources of the protein base are wheat protein, soy, or pea. Konjac is a prolific texturizer in the vegan fish industry; however, starches, gums and fibers are also used. These ocean-friendly foods sometimes incorporate seaweed or algae extracts to make the resulting product taste and feel like the real thing.
After blending the ingredients in appropriate proportions, further processing of plant-based marine food involves extrusion, flavor infusion, and binding.
The extrusion process involves using an extruder machine to shape the premixed dough obtained from the mixing of the plant-based fish ingredients. Alternatively, some plant-based food startups are using other technologies to combine the ingredients into fillet-like structures. A recent publication by the Institute of Food Technologists featured a column about high-moisture extrusion. Some other emerging processes for shaping plant-based fish are 3-D printing, electrospinning, and shear cell technology.
Shelf-stable flavors can be incorporated into plant-based fish fillets through microencapsulation.
Examples of Commercial Plant-Based Marine Food Products
Plant-based fish has gone beyond the conceptualization stage, as many brands already have commercial products in this niche. Here are a few examples of such products:
- Shrimp alternatives
- Crab cakes
- Fish sticks
- Vegan tuna
- Salmon fillets (still in development by brands like Oshi, Revo Foods, Wildtype and Plantish).
Food brands like Unlimeat, Future Farm, Loma Linda, and Good Catch have commercial variants of Vegan Tuna. Similarly, Sophie’s Kitchen, Moving Mountains, Quorn, and Gardein offer their customers fish sticks and fillets, based on different formulas.
ALSO READ: Fighting Food Waste Creatively with “Ugly” Fruits and Veggies
Are These Seafood Alternatives Actually More Sustainable?
Seafood sustainability experts suggest the planet will fare better if humans rely more on plant-based marine foods. They argue that such plant-based fish have a lower carbon footprint than traditional wild fish, or even farmed ones. In addition, plant-based fish do not pollute the marine ecosystem or require antibiotics like farmed fish species.
However, it is undeniable that a seeming solution to a bottleneck may create other problems. For example, it becomes easily noticeable that plant-based marine foods undergo some rigorous processing before arriving on your table, unlike your actual trout, salmon, or lobster. So, in the near future, plant-based seafood may justifiably get classified as an ultra-processed food.
Plant-based marine foods are new on the sustainability turf. Consequently, it may be too early to make confident declarations about the future of seafood. Nonetheless, it may very well become the ‘next frontier’ in alternative proteins. Some bold restaurants may even start featuring it on their menus before 2030. If current innovations continue, the seafood aisle of 2030 may look dramatically different.
