‘ALTERNATIVE SEAFOOD’ SESSION TAKES PLACE AT NMBU

‘Alternative Seafood’ session takes place at NMBU. The NMBU Alt. Protein Project is based at The Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), a leading university in the fields of sustainability, agriculture, food science, and the life sciences.

The project aims to steward a collaborative ecosystem of students, scientists, innovators, entrepreneurs, investors, politicians, and other food enthusiasts eager to participate in the ongoing agricultural revolution. It believes to create transdisciplinary capacity and collaboration by linking theory and practice, breaking down academic silos, bridging academia and industry, and connecting research, innovation and markets.

Together with GFI’s global network, universities, industry partners, the public sector, NGOs and other student organisations, the project focuses to build awareness and collaboration across the value chain, to enable a win-win transition for all stakeholders.

As a part of the project; first special guest lecture has taken place on ‘Alternative Seafood’ last week which was presented by Mr Amod Ashok Salgaonkar, Co-founder of A2S2 Enterprises & Industry Advisory Board Member of Good Food Institute India.

Amod Ashok Salgaonkar

The lecture has covered an overview of alternative seafood industry, sales & investment in the sector, latest learnings at Seafood Expo North America, role of GFI India on smart protein mission and India-Norway opportunities in Alternative Seafood segment.

The presentation also covered the information of Emerging Start-ups originated in Israel in alt seafood segment in the year 2021 besides similar sort of companies emerged through ISPIC 2021 of GFI India.

The first-of-its-kind India Smart Protein Innovation Challenge (ISPIC) by The Good Food Institute India (GFI India) aims to educate and inspire young talent to enter the smart protein sector. The challenge comes with learning, certification, mentorship, and cash prizes for students, young professionals, and entrepreneurs across science and business domains. The 2021 Edition of ISPIC witnessed participation from over 750 candidates across 250+ universities & organisations in India. The results of the event declared last week and final 20 teams chosen as winners among which four teams are from “Alternative Seafood” segment.

Plant based meat & seafood retail sales in US grown significantly from US $ 804 million in 2019 to US $ 1.4 billion in 2020 however the growth remains stagnant from 2020 to 2021. From 2019 to 2021, plant-based seafood grew 42 percent. 2021 saw dollar sales growth in both plant-based shellfish and plant-based fish.

Plant-based shellfish, which includes plant-based analogues for shrimp, scallops, and crab, grew 30 percent, and plant-based fish grew 9 percent. By composition in Alternative seafood, plant-based fish category & plant-based shellfish category did 10.4 US $ million & 3.5 million US $ retail sales respectively in US market in 2021. Eight new plant-based seafood products saw their first sales in U.S. retail in 2021.

Among one of the latest regulatory developments in Cultivated (Cell-cultured) meat; The Dutch House of Representatives adopted a resolution in March 2022 to enable “tastings of cultured meat under controlled conditions within The Netherlands” whereas in terms of investment; Wildtype San Francisco-based cultivated (cell-cultured) seafood startup which is developing cultured salmon from cells outside the animal, raised $100 million in Series B funding in February 2022.