When Aqua Cultured Foods first emerged on the scene, its plan was to carve a unique path in the alt-seafood space with a fungi-based solid-state fermentation platform capable of delivering clean-label whole cuts with low capex and opex costs. It has since pivoted to a cellulose-based platform but retained its low-cost approach, which enables it to achieve price parity “even at pilot scale,” says cofounder and CEO Brittany Chibe.
“We tried for almost two years to get mycelium to grow in our cellulose matrix, but it simply wasn’t working,” said Chibe, who founded Aqua Cultured Foods in 2019 with Anne Palermo (who stepped down as CEO in May but remains on the board). “So the product we’re taking to market this month—which is now self-GRAS (generally recognized as safe)—is made from cellulose,” she told AgFunderNews.
“For the growing process, we’re still using solid state biomass fermentation in a stacked tray system. We use a consortium of microbes: bacteria and yeast. I can’t speak to our specific feedstock recipe, but we feed our microbes and they produce cellulose. We then go through a kill step where the final product gets pasteurized.
“Downstream we add soluble corn fiber, which acts as a stabilizer, and we add flavors through marination. It’s a very simple, very clean, ingredient list.”
Good source of fiber
She added: “The beauty of it is that cellulose is very high in fiber, which is a nutrient [unlike protein] that most Americans are short of, and we’re able to make a good source of fiber claim. There is no protein in it, but that’s okay, because you can get protein from other parts of the dish. So if you have a Poke bowl [where Aqua Cultured Foods’ product replaces tuna] for example, you can get your carbs from the rice, fat from avocado, and protein from beans.”
The process itself is tunable both by manipulating the microbes and the feedstocks, and from altering the growing conditions/environment, said Chibe.
“We looking at different ways to manipulate and perfect things upstream so that we reduce the downstream costs. So we’ve worked with Ginkgo Bioworks to really try and understand what is the makeup of our consortium of microbes and how do we control it so we can deliver a consistent product. The second piece of that work will be fine tuning that consortium to deliver different textures and different products.”
‘We have a really nice margin, even at pilot scale’
As for production costs, she said, “We have very low capex, which allows us to to sell at parity, or even in some instances, to undercut traditional seafood. For example, our scallops are going to be launching at $28 a pound and in our current market here in Chicago (where the company is launching this month at select restaurants), diver scallops sell at upwards of $40 a pound.
“So this allows us to have a really nice margin even at pilot scale, so we can achieve positive unit economics at small scale today, which is really attractive because a lot of companies in our space aren’t able to say that. So that’s a huge benefit to us, but also a huge benefit to our chef partners and restaurant partners because we’re able to deliver them a comparable product at a cost advantage.”
She added: “I really appreciate the foodservice channel because all of the chefs we talk to understand the issues around traditional seafood as they’re unable to get a consistent quality supply week to week and prices are fluctuating all the time. If we’re able to give them a consistent quality product at a consistent price, it’s a huge advantage.”
Aqua Cultured Foods’ pilot plant in Chicago currently produces around 500 pounds of product per month, said Chibe, who added that the startup has raised around $7.8 million across two rounds and secured several grants.
“At capacity, that facility will likely be close to 5,000 pounds per month. And we’ve identified an improvement in our process where we can eliminate a few days of production. And so with that, we actually might be able to increase capacity further.”
The next step will involve working with contract manufacturers, she said. “Two or three years ago, companies in our space were raising money to build commercial size facilities, and we all know what happened with that. So we’re thinking how can we partner with companies that already have infrastructure? Is there open line time or open capacity? How can we leverage that?”
Not technically ‘plant-based’
When it comes to marketing, said Chibe, cellulose is a ubiquitous natural substance that’s found in plant cell walls. As Aqua Cultured Foods is producing it via microbial fermentation, however, it’s not accurate to describe its products as “plant-based.”
She explained: “We’re planning to have our branding on the menu, so rather than saying vegan tuna roll, it would be AQUA tuna roll, for example. We’re going to be doing a lot of consumer marketing and influencer marketing plus we’re doing some front of house education and giving staff at restaurants talking points so they can explain to consumers what it is.
“The first point is that it’s fish-free tuna. For people that have further questions, we then talk about growing cellulose through fermentation, but the basic message we want to convey is that cellulose is fiber. It’s vegan, it’s a clean ingredient, it’s allergen safe, and pregnancy safe.”
The market for alt seafood
As to whether there is genuine demand for seafood alternatives, a category which has not yet set the world on fire, Chibe says the market is a little different to that of meat analogs, which are experiencing double digit declines in the US market.
Unlike meat and poultry, which is relatively cheap and plentiful, at least right now, seafood is facing availability and pricing challenges, which means that chefs are very open to exploring alternatives if the price is right, claimed Chibe.
“Seafood has unique challenges that our customers are seeing firsthand, so I’m still very optimistic both about this space and about fermentation in particular, because it enables us to deliver a really clean label product that is very cost effective.
“What’s really special about our product is that it also looks just like raw seafood.”
Further reading:
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