Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Good Catch

Gathered Foods is Bringing Plant-Based Options to Long John Silver’s

Gathered Foods, the parent company of plant-based seafood brand Good Catch, is now supplying plant-based seafood products to select Long John Silver’s location. The new menu items launched today in five locations in California and Georgia.

Good Catch’s Crab-Free Cakes and Fish-Free Fillets are the two alternative products being featured at Long John Silver’s. The restaurant chain will incorporate these products into several new menu items, including the Plant-Based Platter, two meal options, and à la carte.

Good Catch uses a proprietary blend of six legumes to create its high-protein seafood alternatives. The plant-based fish fillets aim to mimic a flaky white fish and include a breaded coating. The plant-based crab cakes are also breaded and have a lump crabmeat-like texture. The crab cakes have 15 grams of protein per serving, while the fillets have 12 grams.

Gathered Foods is not the only company to bring its plant-based products to nationwide chains as of late. Beyond Meat recently launched its new plant-based chicken tenders products in around 400 restaurants nationwide. Impossible Foods has plans to unveil plant-based chicken nuggets this week, with the intention of launching the new product in restaurants this fall. Greenleaf Foods’ Field Roast brand partnered with Little Caesars to launch its alternative pepperoni (called “Planteroni”) in five U.S. markets last week. These partnerships signal that the demand for plant-based options is still going strong, and nationwide chains must respond.

Long John Silver’s will be serving up Good Catch’s plant-based seafood in Georgia cities of Newnan and Albany, and in California cities Bakersfield, Sacramento, and Clovis. The alternative seafood options will be available at the select locations until supplies last.

Gathered Foods, Maker of Good Catch Secures $26.35M for Plant-Based Seafood

Gathered Foods, which makes the Good Catch brand of plant-based seafood, announced today that it has secured $26.35 million in a B-2 bridge funding round from investors including Louis Dreyfus Company, Unovis Asset Management and Big Idea Ventures.

This new financing follows the $36.8 million Series B round the company raised in January 2020. With the B-2 round, Gathered Foods has raised more than $75 million to date.

The Good Catch brand currently offers lines of plant-based fish products, including tuna, frozen fish burgers, fish cakes and crab cakes. Good Catch has a distribution partnership with Bumble Bee Foods and its products are currently available in the U.S. and Canada as well as in various European countries.

While plant-based burgers from the likes of Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat grab most of the headlines, we’re starting to see more plant-based seafood products enter the marketplace. Revo Foods (formerly Legendary Vish) is launching plant-based salmon strips and salmon spread, and is developing a 3D-printed plant-based salmon filet. Tyson-backed New Wave Foods launched a plant-based shrimp product last month. And Ocean Hugger is back, making its plant-based eel and tuna after ceasing operations because of the pandemic.

All of this activity is buoyed by the fact that the entire plant-based food sector has seen rapid sales growth over the past couple of years. According to recent data from the Good Food Institute and the Plant-Based Food Association, retail sales of plant-based foods hit $7 billion in 2020, growing 27 percent over the past year, nearly two times faster than total U.S. retail food sales.

In its funding announcement today, Gathered Foods said it will use the new funding to ramp up product innovation, increase the number of products it offers and fuel international retail expansion.

Food Tech News: New Growth Medium for Cultured Meat, Pepsi’s Plastic-Free Promise

As winter quickly approaches, COVID-19 restrictions resurge and stay-at-home orders seem like they’re in the near future. If you’re like me, you might be trying to decide which new kitchen project you want to take on. I perfected my kombucha process in March and even experimented with alcoholic booch (it was terrible). Should I try my hand at vegan donuts or croissants this time around? Sauerkraut or kimchi?

With many of us being stuck indoors once again, it might be a perfect time to catch up on some Food Tech News. This week we have news on the development of a new growth medium for cultured meat cells, sustainable Pepsi bottle packaging, Good Catch’s expansion into Europe, and Subway’s new online catering platform.

Innovate UK funds development of new growth medium for cultured meat

Centre for Process Innovation and 3D Bio-Tissues, a start-up from Newcastle University, have partnered and received grant money from Innovate UK to make cultured meat animal-free while simultaneously reducing the cost of developing it. The project aims to replace the most common growth media used to culture animal cells, called fetal bovine serum (FBS). There is a morality issue with FBS, as it is extracted from slaughtered pregnant cows in the meat and dairy industry. The new serum will likely be developed from agro-industrial byproducts, which would then remove the use of animals and then solve the ethical issue that FBS poses.

Pepsi to go 100 percent plastic-free in several European markets by 2022

PepsiCo announced this week that it will be transitioning to use recycled post-consumer plastics for its Pepsi bottles in several European countries. By 2021, Spain, Greece, Poland, Germany, and Romania will have 100% rPET(recycled polyethylene terephthalate) Pepsi bottles. France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and Great Britain will make the switch by 2022. The company estimates that this change will save around 70,000 tons of single-use plastic a year.

Good Catch expands to Europe

Good Catch, producers of plant-based seafood, expanded its products into the European countries of Spain and the Netherlands this week. The company’s vegan tuna, fish burgers, and crab cakes are now available in 70 different stores throughout the Netherlands and in the specialty chain Sanchez Romero in Madrid. This news follows Good Catch’s recent expansion into Canada in October and the launch of the company’s D2C platform last month.

Subway launches online catering platform

Subway announced the launch of its new online catering platform that is provided by ezCater, an online marketplace for business catering. The new platform aims to offer a convenient way to place large orders for employee lunches and company events. This new feature is now available at every Subway located in the US.

Food Tech News: Potato-based Chicken R&D, Good Catch Launches D2C Platform

If you’re reading this week’s Food Tech News, that means we’ve made it past Friday the 13th, 2020. Congrats! A few stories stood out to us this week, including potato-based chicken alternative development, Good Catch’s D2C platform, and a funding announcement in AI-driven vertical farming.

Large Nordic chicken producer invests in potato-based, chicken alternative

Scandi Standard, the largest producer of chicken in Nordic countries, announced this week its partnership and investment in Veg of Lund, which is a producer of bottled plant-based smoothies. It seems like an unlikely duo, but Veg of Lund has patented its smoothie base of potato and rapeseed oil, which will be used to create the plant-based chicken alternative. The meat producer has invested in a two-year research project to create the chicken alternative, with the investment totaling SEK 4 million (approximately $460K USD).

Good Catch & Alpha Foods now offer home-delivery

Good Catch Foods, producers of plant-based seafood, and Alpha Foods, a plant-based meat company, have now made its products available direct to consumers. The home delivery service can be used by those based in the USA. Consumers can purchase plant-based tuna made from a blend of legumes directly from Good Catch’s website. The company’s other products are not yet available for home delivery, and there is a three tuna pouch minimum order requirement.

On Alpha Food’s website, consumers can purchase plant-based chicken nuggets, burritos, and pouches of “beef” crumbles. The company’s products are sold in bundle packages, with the option of reoccurring shipments every month.

Good Catch and Alpha Foods join companies like Beyond, PepsiCo, Impossible, and many other brands in launching its own D2C platform.

Swegreen secures funding for AI-driven vertical farming

Swedish-based Swegreen and research partners have received an investment totaling 9.1 million Swedish Krona (approximately $1.05M USD) from Vinnova. Research partners include Mälardalen University and RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, and the three entities will be working together to continue to develop Swegreen’s AI-platform for vertical farming. Swegreen additionally aims to advance the digital supply chain and achieve climate neutrality through its urban food production.

Ocean Hugger Has Big Plans to Re-Enter the Plant-Based Seafood Market

Plant-based seafood startup Ocean Hugger said this week it is in the midst of planning a relaunch, according to an interview with Food Navigator. 

In June, the New York-based company had to cease operations, citing the COVID-19 pandemic as the reason. Up to that point, Ocean Hugger ran a promising business selling its “tuna” and “eel” products to foodservice businesses. As we’re all too aware these days, the foodservice industry has been one of the hardest hit by the pandemic, and Ocean Hugger found itself facing no sales and had to stop operations.

Now, however, it appears the company is planning its comeback. An update from August 31 on the Ocean Hugger website states that, “Over the coming months, we will be exploring paths to relaunch bigger and better than ever.”

How the company plans to do that is under wraps for now. Food Navigator notes that new developments should “enable the business to relaunch next year.” Co-founder David Benzaquen suggested to the publication that Ocean Hugger is exploring ways to re-enter the market and also hinted at new products. He gave no further details.

It’s reasonable to imagine that, with the right business model, Ocean Hugger will be successful in its attempt to relaunch. Investment in alternative proteins has already reached over $1.1 billion in 2020, and both plant- and cell-based seafood startups have made many a headline recently. General Mills invested $32 million Good Catch at the beginning of 2020. BlueNalu, which grows cell-based seafood in bioreactors, nabbed a $20 million investment in February. More recently, S2G ventures said it would be investing $100 million in seafood and ocean health startups including alt-protein.

Ocean Hugger has so far raised $500,000 from a funding round in 2019. Benzaquen said in his interview this week that seafood is one of the most obvious areas of animal protein to disrupt from a sustainability and animal welfare angle. If others agree, that investment figure for Ocean Hugger could go up significantly in the future.

Good Catch Hooks $10M in Funding for its Plant-Based Tuna

Yesterday Gathered Foods, the company behind Good Catch plant-based seafood, announced that it had closed a $10 million convertible note round. According to Forbes, the round was led by animal-free protein funds New Crop Capital and Stray Dog Capital. Along with last year’s $8.7 million Series A, this latest round should bring Gathered Foods’ total funding to roughly $18.7 million.

Good Catch makes plant-based tuna using a 6-protein blend and algal oil to give it that distinct ocean-y taste. Each 3.3-ounce pouch of Good Catch tuna — which comes in three flavors — has 14 grams of protein and costs around $4.99. Gathered Foods is also developing a line of frozen entrées, like vegan “crab” cakes and fish-free “whitefish” burgers, which will be available in spring of 2020.

The company will use its new funds to scale production of Good Catch’s plant-based seafood. No wonder — in February of this year the company started rolling out its products in Whole Foods as well as through online grocery providers FreshDirect and Thrive Market. However, their Whole Foods exclusivity ended on May 1st, so we’ll likely start to see them popping up in even more retailers.

To keep up with increased distribution, Gathered Foods is currently building a $20 million manufacturing facility in Ohio which will be able to make a variety of plant-based proteins. Seeing as Good Catch is coming out with a line of faux crab and fish patties, this flexibility makes a lot of sense. They’re aiming to finish the new facility by the end of this year — hopefully that will help them avoid the supply issues other plant-based meat companies have been struggling with as of late.

Good Catch isn’t the only one trying to disrupt the seafood industry with more sustainable, plant-based options. Sophie’s Kitchen has a vegan canned “toona” from springy Japanese yam, and Ocean Hugger Foods turns tomatoes and eggplant into plant-based alternatives to raw fish for sushi.

As cool as all these are, to me they’re just a stop-gap until lab-grown seafood comes to market. Quite a few companies are working on it — Wild Type makes cell-based lox, Shiok Meats makes cultured shrimp, and Finless Foods is developing lab-grown tuna.

Due to high costs, scaling difficulties and regulatory hurdles, however, it’ll be quite a few years before cell-based seafood shows up at our local Whole Foods. Let’s see how far Good Catch gets before then.

Good Catch’s Plant-Based Tuna Swims into Retail

Good Catch just got one step closer to changing your tune about tuna. Yesterday the company rolled out its plant-based “tuna” products in Whole Foods, as well as through grocery subscription service Thrive Market and online grocer FreshDirect.

Good Catch’s tuna is made of a “6-plant protein blend” which contains lentils, pea protein, soy, and chickpea flour, as well as sea algae oil for flavor. It comes in three flavors, “Naked in Water,” “Mediterranean,” and “Oil and Herbs,” all of which are packaged in pouches (not cans) and cost $4.99.  Each 3.3 ounce serving of tuna has 14 grams of protein.

When it comes to plant-based foods, there are plenty of “fish” in the sea. In addition to Good Catch’s tuna, Sophie’s Kitchen has a “toona” made out of Japanese yam, and Ocean Hugger’s ahimi is a plant-based alternative to raw tuna — both of which are also sold at select Whole Foods. Atlantic Natural Foods also recently launched a new fishless tuna product, called “Tuno.”

There’s no question that more and more people are turning to plant-based protein. But is there enough demand to support multiple brands of vegan tuna?

Maybe not now, but soon consumers might not have a choice. The price of fresh tuna is rising as stocks dwindle due to overfishing. Just last month in Japan a giant tuna sold for a whopping $3.1 million. Canned tuna might not cost anywhere near as much as fresh, but if we continue to deplete the supply eventually it might. Plus there’s the worrying levels of mercury to think about. As consumers turn away from canned tuna for health or price reasons, Good Catch & co. will be there for all their tuna melt needs.

One final note: it’s interesting that Good Catch named its product straight-up “tuna,” instead of using a similar word or a different spelling, like its competitors. As meat and dairy companies battle to keep plant-based options from using words like “meat” and “milk,” this is a pretty bold move from Good Catch. I wouldn’t be surprised if the company gets some backlash from Big Fish.

Good Catch raised $8.7 million last August. We haven’t tried its products yet, but with the number of new plant-based players trying to disrupt canned tuna, it just might be time for a taste test.