San Francisco, California, U.S.A.-based Kuleana is introducing a plant-based raw tuna substitute into the U.S. market, becoming the latest start-up to enter the seafood analog arena.
The company, which has origins in Germany, describes itself as the “Impossible Foods of seafood.” It received an unspecified amount of start-up funding from Y Combinator in 2019.
“We are on route to create products to mimic and even pass existing animal options in terms of taste and texture,” the company said in its Y Combinator profile.
Kuleana is led by Sónia Hurtado, who has a master’s degree in food biotechnology, and Jacek Prus, who has an MBA in entrepreneurship.
Prus cited consumer concerns with overfishing, lower stock levels, plastic pollution in the oceans, issues surrounding forced labor in the supply chain, and fish fraud as major issues pushing people to eat less tuna, and said Kuleana’s product allows sushi-lovers to enjoy their favorite flavors while “avoid[ing] these ethical, environmental, and health pitfalls,” according to Food Navigator.
“Because we’ve focused on developing a high-fidelity product, we’re convinced that it will help to get tuna off the table,” Prus said. “We’ve found that in order to truly replace a product, the substitute has to be at least as good in the fundamentals of taste, cost, and convenience.”
The company has already conducted successful trials of its product in Barcelona and San Francisco, according to One Green Planet, and Prus said the company now believes its proprietary process of combining iron, algae oil, and various proteins has been perfected.
“Raw tuna has quite a subtle flavor, with hints of fishiness and metallic taste[s],” he said. “We’ve combined two natural ingredients, derived from koji and algae, to deliver this subtle flavor.”
A texturization technique also gives Kuleana’s product the look of raw tuna, he said.
Kuleana has plans to roll out its new product in sushi restaurants across the United States, Europe, and Brazil, and has already secured letters of intent from restaurants valued at more than USD 400,000 (EUR 337,000), according to Prus. The product is deal for sushi rolls and poke bolls, he said.
The cost of producing it is competitive with the price of sashimi-grade tuna, according to Prus.
“We are … very competitive on cost because of the first principle that plants are incredibly more efficient than animals,” he said. “Due to this, we can provide the tuna experience at a much more affordable level for consumers.”
Eventually, Kuleana hopes to add additional plant-based seafood imitation products – specifically, salmon and shellfish analogs – to its offerings, Prus said.
Several other companies have introduced tuna analogs in the past few years, including Good Catch, Atlantic Natural Foods, and Nestle. But Ocean Hugger Foods, which also tried to create a sashimi-grade raw tuna analog, went out of business earlier this year.
Photo courtesy of Kuleana
