Thanks to increased demand for its products in the United States and the United Kingdom, Gathered Foods, which makes Good Catch plant-based seafood analogs, is building a new facility in the U.S.
New York, New York-based Gathered Foods is building a dedicated production facility in Heath, Ohio, for plant-based foods. The supplier expects to open the 42,500-square-foot facility in March 2020, and will hire up to 50 full-time and 30 part-time employees.
“We’ve seen great interest from retailers as we expand our footprint throughout the U.S. and internationally. From the consumer standpoint, we have experienced an incredible response to our products and have seen the excitement around the plant-based industry grow tremendously,” Good Catch CEO Chris Kerr told SeafoodSource.
Good Catch’s products are distributed in 4,000 stores in the U.S. and will be available in the U.K. in early 2020. They are sold in chains such as Target and Whole Foods Market.
Good Catch products are currently produced at a pilot plant in the U.K., “which has very limited production capacity,” Kerr said. The new plant can produce around 20 times what the pilot plant could in its first phase (of three phases), he added.
“Our state-of-the-art Good Catch manufacturing plant in Heath is a response to pent up demand for plant-based offerings and enormous interest in alternative seafood offerings,” Kerr said.
Good Catch was created to offer the taste, texture, and nutrition of seafood, the supplier said in a press release.
“Founding chef partners and brothers, Chad and Derek Sarno, along with our in-house team of food scientists, have worked for years to create the Good Catch’s proprietary six-legume blend (peas, chickpeas, lentils, soy, fava beans, and navy beans), utilized as the protein rich base of the Good Catch products,” the supplier said.
In addition to the base of beans and legumes, the products feature algae oil, which contributes fatty acids present in many seafoods, “while also providing real ocean flavor,” Good Catch said.
Good Catch began distributing its products in 2018, and received USD 10 million (EUR 9 million) in funding earlier this year.
Photo courtesy of Gathered Foods.
