Aqua Cultured Foods Co-Founders Anne Palermo and Brittany Chibe are on The Plantbased Business Hour to discuss seafood from fungi, the food revolution and their big capital raise.
Specifically, we discuss,
- The state of alternative seafood for Aqua Cultured Foods,
- Their Non-GMO whole cuts of fish and seafood,
- The growth time and nutrition content of seafood made from fermented fungi,
- Their plans for scaling up Aqua Cultured Foods and going-to-market,
- Their thoughts on communicating alternative seafood to the consumer,
- Aqua Cultured Foods’ $2.1M raise and Chicago as a food start-up city.
Elysabeth: What’s your go-to-market strategy? Direct to consumers or straight to restaurants?
Brittany Chibe: 70% of seafood is eaten outside of the home, so at the restaurant level. So, food service is going to be a significant channel for us and it’s amazing the interest we’ve had globally. I think over 70% of seafood is consumed in Asian countries so we’re targeting Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, a lot of those larger markets to launch our products there. It’s sort of like the sky’s the limit, you know, with what we can do.
Elysabeth: I took a little detour from where we were before which is talking about that your go-to-market strategy is really restaurants which makes so much sense. But,of course, the kind of restaurant, might even be a fast food chain that offer popcorn shrimp or fried calamari. This is going to be very different than those that might offer for sashimi or something like that. It’s still early days, but how are you thinking of splitting that branding really?
Anne Palermo: What we’re really trying to do is bring new, exciting and delicious and products with great nutrition to market, but also to bring it to market more accessibly because what we want to do is meet consumers where they are at right now and those are the types of products that they’re really consuming in the largest quantities.
Brittany Chibe: Like if I were to plate in front of you a six ounce fungi-based cod, it’s intimidating. You’re going to be like, ‘what the heck do I do with this thing? What even is it? What am I eating?’ But, if it’s a very poppable small piece of popcorn shrimp or piece of calamari and it’s breaded and fried, our protein carries the flavor of that breading and that seasoning, it’s so easy to understand. Like Anne said earlier, we need to meet our consumers where they are and if you can go to McDonalds and order our popcorn shrimp from a dollar menu, how accessible is that?
The way to make impactful change is to make something with really broad appeal and so that’s the whole reason behind these breaded and fried products. And I think you can have the same branding. You know, that’s something that investors asked us when we were fundraising which is,: how do you have these cheaper cuts, like a popcorn shrimp or a calamari, but then you have these premium whole cut sushi cuts? And I guess my argument is that Beyond has done it and Impossible has done it. They are in Michelin star restaurants with an Impossible burger and then I can go to Burger King and get an Impossible Whopper. So, if they can do it, why can’t we?
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