Shrimp from Seaweed
With a background in material science and engineering, Michelle Wolf always wanted to use her technical skillset to help make the world a better place. Being inspired by plant-based beef alternatives gaining traction in the mainstream, she began to learn more about other industries and realised that despite the opportunity, nobody was really looking at seafood. Fast forward to now and Michelle is the co-founder of plant-based seafood company New Wave Foods who aim to protect our oceans, starting with sustainable shrimp. In this week’s episode we delve deeper into the company’s mission, as well as their unique ingredients and how these compare to other options on the market. We also discuss New Wave’s food service focus, their recently announced partnership with Dot foods, plus more.
After seeing plant-based businesses like Beyond and Impossible gain traction in the mainstream, it wasn’t long until Michelle began to look into other industries, including the seafood sector.
Michelle: “As I learned about the industry, and the opportunities there, there are a lot of issues in seafood supply chains that are causing global fish shortages and there’s a lot of unsavoury practises that impact our health and the environment at large.”
Shrimp is one of the poster children for these problems, and yet remains the most consumed seafood in the US, almost double that of the next eaten seafoods salmon and tuna.
With shrimp being a 9 billion dollar market, and contributing to multiple environmental harms, Michelle wanted to help create a better alternative, which is what to the development of a novel plant-based shrimp product.
But how does New Wave’s product differ from others offered on the market?
The answer comes down to the ingredients, with the company’s shrimp being made from a combination of seaweed extract and mung bean protein for texture, as well as sunflower oil for the mouth feel. Due to a growing body of health-conscious consumers, the plant-based shrimp is also free of the top major allergens like soy.
Michelle: “We needed this to be very versatile for our food service chefs, and we worked really hard to make sure that it would work in a number of applications.”
The way in which the company has gone about achieving this is working with certified master chef Brad Barnes from the Culinary Institute of America.
Michelle: “He actually helped us kick off some of the product development by walking us through the best tasting shrimp from around the world, and helped us come up with that amalgamation of the texture … and then we used his descriptors as we were developing to make sure that we were hitting the mark.”
Barnes also provided guidance on the processes that shrimp will have to go through in a chef’s kitchen; everything from being thawed in the refrigerator, to sitting in warming drawers or under heat lamps, something that Michelle says was important to know to ensure the development of a robust product.
The collaboration with Barnes has been central to meeting the business’ food service focus.
Michelle: “Unlike chicken and beef, about 80% of overall seafood consumption is eaten outside of the home for a number of reasons; because people think it makes their house smelly, they don’t know how to cook it, it’s a lot of work to peel and de-vein before cooking … and so we wanted to continue with that strategy.”
Despite the pandemic seeing restaurants around the country close, New Wave didn’t pivot from their launch strategy.
Michelle: “We really believe that the food industry is resilient, and while the recovery has been slower than we have wanted and hoped, we still know that it’s going to happen.”
We also spoke a bit more in depth on the unique ingredients being used in the shrimp, most notably seaweed. I asked Michelle on how these products are sourced, and if there were any difficulties in meeting sustainability targets.
Michelle: “What’s really cool about seaweed is that it grows incredibly quickly, and it’s really good at taking carbon out of our air and does it at a rate much faster than our land crops”
As a result, Michelle went on to say that seaweed may help ocean acidification which is where the sustainability of the ingredient lies.
Michelle: “One of the things that’s important to us is figuring out, if people want to buy products like New Wave Food’s shrimp, that’s going to have effects up the supply chain where we’re starting to incentivise environmentally beneficial agriculture"
The way that the ingredient is currently harvested also doesn’t involve intense monoculture farming. Growing off shore on rocks, it isn’t until a certain point when the seaweed detaches and floats to shore that it’s collected and used in the manufacturing of food products.
Michelle: “I really like it because you’re not disrupting those ocean environments. I think the question on monoculture is a good one, I think there is too much of a good thing, but I think seaweed is something where we’re still at a point where we could be growing it more, figuring out how to cultivate it better, because it does create better ocean ecosystems for a number of sea life, so I think there’s opportunity there.”
Mung bean can also be considered a sustainable source of protein based on the fact that the legume requires less water and can be grown at higher altitudes.
Michelle: “Picking ingredients with a great sustainability profile was one of the key drivers in our ingredient selection process”
Image: New Wave Food’s shrimp product in a nacho dish. Sourced from their website.
We also discussed Michelle’s personal journey about what it’s been like to take on a role as co-founder of the company.
Michelle": “I think being in a startup is such a rollercoaster; there are high highs, and there are low lows, and I think for me personally it’s been important to keep my friends and family close.”
Michelle: “So on days when I feel like I’m facing impossible problems, if we’re having issues with producing the product or something didn’t quite ship right, or having those days where I feel like I can’t move on, having those people around me say “no, you’re doing something amazing and awesome and is going to make the world a better place” … having those reminders has been so important.”
Michelle: “That would be my advice to any entrepreneur, to any founder; make sure you have that network of people who are going to relentlessly believe in you and your mission throughout your journey.”
That network of people extends beyond family and friends to also investors, with New Wave closing its 2019 Series A financing round with $18 million USD and support from big names such as Tyson Ventures.
Even though needing to move quickly adds pressure, Michelle says that she think it’s been well received.
Michelle: “The faster that we can move and the more successful we can be with this product, the more we feel like we can fulfil our mission. I think when working with stakeholders like investors who didn’t necessarily come from the food space, there’s a lot of important collaboration that has to happen and a certain amount of education … what it’s going to take to get a food startup off the ground, even if it is happening at lightning speeds is very different to how quickly an app can get started up.”
Michelle: “I think it’s just about having an open dialogue with those stakeholders and helping them understand what you’re doing and that you have the tenacity to get it done, and get it done right.”
This ties in with how tech investors are seeing the plant-based space?
Michelle: “I think tech investors were really coming into this thinking it was going to be like another tech company that will scale quickly; there’s going to be version 1.0 and 2.0 and 3.0 and there will be quick returns and low overhead, and I think that that hasn’t necessarily been the case … but I do think those investors have understood better about what it takes to run a food company and what sorts of realistic valuations are for these companies, and that sometimes to scale them quickly (especially in the case of food) can be a dangerous thing.”
Michelle: “I think the money has become more educated over time, but I think it did have a reputation 5 years ago of trying to make these food companies grow and scale like they were a tech company.”
New Wave Foods have also recently announced a collaboration with Dot Foods, North America’s largest food industry re-distributor.
Michelle: “They’re a master of logistics that will take your product on with a bunch of other products, and figure out how to double up on shipments to other operators.”
Michelle: “They were excited about the potential and they brought us on to their systems at a very early stage which a lot of companies don’t see, which we took as a huge vote of confidence that this major re-distributor was willing to bring us on even before we had a lot of traction ourselves.”
Michelle: “They’ve been a fantastic partner to work with.”
Michelle’s advice for those who want to follow the path of entrepreneurship?
Michelle: “Don’t doubt yourself. One thing that I have found is that trusting my gut has always been better than not, so always believe in what you know to be true and if you really believe in a product or an idea, chase after it and don’t let people tell you no or that you don’t know how to because we need a lot of solutions, and we need a lot of bold, tenacious people to chase them down.”
To learn more you can head to New Wave’s website or follow them on social media.