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.