Will Vegan Seafood Survive?! Co-Founder of Good Catch Foods, Chad Sarno is on the Plantbased Business Hour with me to get into the details!
With people eating less beef, pork and chicken, they are switching to fish. However, our oceans are already depleted. With seafood consumption on the rise, that means more commercial, factory fish farming. That’s definitely the wrong direction. Time to disrupt! Good Catch to the rescue! In addition to plant-based Tuna, Good Catch has three new items out on the East Coast: Fish Burgers, Crab Cakes and Fish Cakes, soon to distributed across the U.S. Be on the look-out for your vegan Fish Burgers, Crab Cakes and Fish Cakes!
Below are the notes from this interview.
1:05 Chad Sarno believes that commercial fisheries should be transparent about what is in their products and how they are catching their fish. Plant based seafood is only 1% of the plant-based meat market. People consume two hundred to three hundred types of sea creatures which opens the door for a lot of opportunities for new plant-based products. There is so much market potential and there is a far way to go. Good Catch has recently launched some new products on the east coast which are plant-based fish burgers, crab cakes, and fish cakes. Good Catch products offer 20 grams of protein per serving. Chad started the company because he saw the potential in the market for something new. Good Catch’s first popular product is their plant-based tuna. Chad and Good Catch are not going after individual fishermen who do it as a hobby or for their livelihood.They are going after commercial fish factories.
9:50 Chad believes that what will help push people towards plant-based fish is availability and once the market becomes saturated people will want to try new products. Making an impact within the system is the most effective way which is why Good Catch has a partnership with Bumblebee Tuna. This has helped put Good Catch products near Bumblebee Tuna in grocery stores and in the frozen seafood isle instead of the vegan isle. Good Catch recently built a new plant outside of Columbus, Ohio where they are currently producing all of their products out of. This allows a great opportunity to scale with demand.
35:30 “The amount of protein I consumed while developing this product is inhumane,” says Chad. The product took many years of development and working with different suppliers because protein is not the same throughout the world. “We set out to really have a global footprint with our product not knowing how we were gonna do that. We just knew that we had the passion to deliver and the impact of investors behind us.” Chad’s advice for any young entrepreneurs is not to give up. The bar has been set high with other plant-based options but it is possible to create more amazing products that function how people are used to that animal product function. It is important to have supportive investors to be there with you through the ups and downs. “Being able to see eye to eye with investors is incredibly critical.”
Chad Sarno explains how to make vegan seafood!
44:40 Chad’s predictions for the next three to five years is more disruption in the industry and more plant-based fish products. Consumers will help drive the change and due to that change there are going to be so many animals that will be saved. For Chad, once he realized the connection that food had with health, it inspired him to look more into it and the animal welfare side really pushed him to become a vegan. Chad wishes that ten years ago he had known the size and awareness of the plant based industry because he would have started innovating a lot sooner.
The Elysabeth Alfano Show airs every Sunday 4p ET live on the WCGO-Chicago, WCGORadio.com, The Smart Talk Radio Network, The JaneUnChained News Network and Alexa. To hear more of The Elysabeth Alfano Show, click here.
And please help us make the first and only syndicated plant-based radio show in the nation a huge success! Tell YOUR local station to pick up The Elysabeth Alfano Show, available across the nation through the Smart Talk Radio Network or by contacting Elysabeth at Elysabeth@ElysabethAlfano.com.
SUBSCRIBE to The Elysabeth Alfano Show on iTunes and to my Youtube Channel, Elysabeth Alfano. Be sure to subscribe to my monthly newsletter so you never miss a Facebook Live interview session or live cooking demos. Plus, don’t forget to stay in touch on Instagram and Twitter.
Thank you, also, to VegFund for supporting this podcast! In addition to my weekly Sunday radio show (4p ET on WCGO) you can catch me live on WGN Radio, WCPT Radio, WLS Radio and periodically on WGN-TV, WCIU-TV, iHeart Radio, Good Morning LALALand, Bagels Over Broadway, Splash Magazine Worldwide and NPR’s KCRW as a plant-based expert.
