Brittany Chibe, the CEO of Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.-based alternative seafood analog firm AQUA Cultured Foods, said she is taking a different approach toward helping alternative proteins gain mass appeal.
Instead of mass producing its fish-free seafood analog products, as many producers in the space are working to do, AQUA Cultured Foods said it has chosen to target individual restaurants and win over their chefs – and then their customers – one bite at a time.
“Chefs running Michelin-starred restaurants or tastemaker shops care so deeply about sourcing because they want to not only work with the best to give the best experience to the customer, but because they are also telling a story through food,” Chibe said. “Part of that story is where [the food] comes from and being able to trace it back to the origin."
One restaurant that has partnered with Chibe and AQUA is Michelin Bib Gourmand award-winning Chicago restaurant Mama Delia. AQUA’s fish-free raw tuna analog has now replaced conventional tuna on the menu at the restaurant, with the establishment’s chef, Marcos Campos, now bringing AQUA products to the menus of his other restaurants.
“I think it’s an incredible achievement to recreate something that looks just like tuna,” Campos said in a release. “As humans, we eat with our eyes. As soon as you see the color, you understand what you’re eating and feel comfortable with it; that’s very important with a product like this.”
Besides the look and taste, chefs have also enjoyed the return on investment AQUA products offer them, Chibe said.
“I think a really interesting anecdote that [Campos] has shared with me is that when he buys tuna for his restaurants, he actually loses between 25 percent and 40 percent of it when they’re trimming it for use,” she said. “Between removing the skin, bones, and fatty muscles, and depending on the experience of the person in the back of the house that's preparing that tuna, you lose a significant portion of it just in that operation. So when it comes to a price per pound, there's that premium on [the conventional fish] that we can completely eliminate.”
Chibe said to meet demand many companies producing a seafood analog aim to produce products that are inexpensive and scalable, often leveraging advanced technology like 3D printing to produce products.
AQUA has taken a different approach, focusing on growing slowly and intentionally.
“We use fermentation to grow our cellulose, which is the base of the product,” she said. “To grow the cellulose, we just use the sugar and water feedstock. We’re just not beholden to volatile pricing like traditional seafood. Our inputs are so inexpensive, and our biggest cost is our labor. So, as we scale, we're looking at how to improve efficiency … and try and reduce that labor time to even get the price down further – to continue to undercut the cost.”
Many alternative proteins have also been marketed explicitly toward vegans, but Chibe said she believes AQUA’s products are for everyone.
“I’m not a vegan, but the more you learn about the food system, the less you want to eat,” she said. “[Our products are] for people who care about the environmental impacts of the different foods they’re consuming. Then, there are other people, too, who think about it from a health perspective. They don’t like to be consuming the antibiotics, pesticides, and microplastics that come along with these foods we’re consuming.”
Chibe said that in addition to chefs the product has been a hit with consumers who have shellfish allergies and other health-related preferences for avoiding raw seafood, like those who are pregnant.
“The feedback we’ve gotten from [people with allergies] was that [AQUA products] are so cool because they haven’t had seafood in years,” she said.
Chibe added that one of AQUA’s employees is having her first child in a couple of months, and that when the team goes to dinner, her team member “can have AQUA tuna and be part of that meal.”
“It checks different boxes for different people,” she said.
Looking ahead, Chibe said AQUA is eyeing nationwide growth, targeting some of the largest markets in the country.
“We have a great pipeline of customers, not only in Chicago but also New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas that we're planning to roll out with next year,” she said.
