A family-owned business based in Chesapeake Bay, USA, makes alt-seafood such as alt-shrimp, alt-scallops, and alt-crab cakes from plant-based ingredients.
The mother and daughter tandem of The Plant-Based Seafood company recognised a need for sustainable and meaningful change from their twenty-year seafood business after witnessing first-hand what they have described as “unacceptable and often hidden practices” in the fishing and seafood farming industries.
According to the United Nations, a staggering 95 per cent of ocean damage worldwide comes directly from bottom trolling, dragging nets across the seafloor to scoop up fish – stirs up the sediment lying on the seabed, displaces or harms some marine species, causes pollutants to mix into plankton and move into the food chain and creates harmful algae blooms or oxygen-deficient dead zones.
In addition, a recent report discussed the impact of commercial fishing on the environment. It doesn’t matter whether fish are bred in farms or caught through bottom trolling. Each fish captured and consumed leaves a dangerous impact on the ocean’s ecosystem. For example, a 2-acre fish farm can produce as much waste as a town of 10,000 people.
Given the state of the commercial seafood industry, the company decided to take its business model and transform it into something more sustainable for the planet – craft seafood alternatives using plants.
According to the company, mimicking seafood flavours using plants wasn’t easy, but it can be done. Its alt-seafood products such as Crunchy Coconut Shrimp and Dusted Bay Scallops are made with ingredients like chickpea, artichoke, and rice flour, seasoned with konjac powder, paprika, and sea salt to help make it “taste like the real thing”.
Furthermore, all of the brand’s products are free from soy, dairy, egg, and gluten.
The company recently partnered with retail company Harris Teeter to help distribute its Mind Blown! Alt-seafood products on all 261 Harris Teeter stores located in Florida, Delaware, Georgia, North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia.
“We feel this is an important market for our Mind Blown Plant-Based Seafood as consumer demand for quality plant-based seafood rises,” said Monica Talbert, co-founder, The Plantbased Seafood co.
