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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

sushi

Plant-Based Sushi Startup Ocean Hugger Foods Falls Victim to COVID-19, Ceases Operations

COVID-19 has claimed another food-related business, this time plant-based seafood startup Ocean Hugger Foods.

The company, which had raised $500,000 in late 2019, had been gaining traction through much of 2019 for vegan sushi products as it reeled in wins at select Whole Foods and quick service restaurants such as Ahipoki.

But once COVID-19 hit, the bulk of the company’s customers closed down for months and, as a result, Ocean Hugger couldn’t survive.

The company disclosed the news via an open letter on its website. From the letter:

Due to the COVID-19 health crisis our world is facing, and the fact that our company sells exclusively to foodservice customers (such as university and corporate cafeterias, and restaurants) who are suffering greatly during this time, it is with tremendous sadness that we must report that Ocean Hugger Foods must cease operations.

The company had launched its second product at last year’s National Restaurant Show, a vegan eel sushi (unami). The product followed its original ahimi (the company’s plant-based “tuna” sushi).

While some food companies that rely heavily on food service were able to sustain themselves through ramped up restaurant delivery or by pivoting to direct to consumer channels, Ocean Hugger didn’t benefit much from either of these alternative models. Sushi is the type of food most prefer to eat fresh and in-venue, and it certainly isn’t the type of product that could be delivered direct to consumer through order-by-mail.

While Ocean Hugger wasn’t the only company with plant-based sushi alternatives, they were maybe the most well known and seemed to be on a good trajectory before COVID-19.

With restaurants in the US and other markets slowly reopening, hopefully other startups who have been struggling like Ocean Hugger can start to sell their products again. However, with some markets starting to see an increasing number of COVID cases as people start heading to restaurants, chances are we’ll probably see some future COVID-related casualties.

Ocean Hugger Foods to Unveil Plant-Based “Eel” Sushi at National Restaurant Association Show

There will be aisles and aisles of new technology to see and taste at this weekend’s National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago. But I’m willing to bet my bottom dollar that there will only be one plant-based eel sushi.

Ocean Hugger Foods is debuting its new vegan eel, called unami at the show this weekend. It’s made from eggplant, which the company processes to imitate the texture of eel, as well as soy sauce, mirin, and algae oil for flavor.

This will be the second product from the New York-based startup, which already makes ahimi, a plant-based alternative to raw tuna made from tomatoes. (Next up they’re launching a vegan “salmon” made from carrots to be called sakimi.)

The company hasn’t announced when or where its unami will be sold. I’m guessing it’ll join sushi lineups alongside their ahimi, which is available in around 90 restaurants and grocery stores, including Whole Foods.

A few months ago I predicted that vegan sushi — that is, sushi that uses realistic plant-based raw fish, not just California rolls — would become a growing market. Ocean Hugger Foods isn’t the only one in the space: across the pond in the U.K., plant-based food company Ima is selling sushi made with a vegan salmon substitute.

Eel isn’t quite as popular a sushi selection as tuna or salmon, but it’s rapidly disappearing due to climate change and overfishing. In fact, the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch List lists eel as “one of the worst seafood choices from an environmental perspective.”

It may not be America’s #1 sushi choice, but the New York-based company is smart to diversify its product range before other companies jump in and stake their claim with plant-based sashimi. Plus, since eel is chiefly consumed in Japan and China, maybe this product will help Ocean Hugger Food expand into the plant-based protein-hungry Asian market.

If you’re in Chicago this weekend and have a chance to sample Ocean Hugger Foods’ unami, leave us a comment and tell us what you thought.

Later, California Rolls. New Vegan Sushi Options are Trying to Mimic Raw Fish

For most vegetarians, sushi options are limited to all-too-often lackluster California rolls. Maybe a tamago egg, if they’re lucky.

But as of late, vegetarians and vegans — or consumers who are just concerned about ocean overfishing — have several new options to swipe through their soy sauce. Ones composed entirely of plants, but which are made to fool you into thinking you’re eating raw fish.

Photo: Ima.

First up is a new product from Ima, a plant-based food company. Just last week Ima released a sushi roll with a salmon substitute made of konjac, an Asian root vegetable with a gelatinous texture. Ima has twelve other products, including a vegan sushi burrito (sushi-rito?), but this is their first offering that’s really trying to imitate fish. We can’t speak to the taste, but the look is spot-on. Ima’s plant-based sushi is sold in U.K. retailers Planet Organic and Sourced Market.

For those who are more into tuna, Ocean Hugger Foods has “ahimi”: an alternative to raw ahi tuna made out of tomatoes, which they process to mimic the taste and texture of raw fish. Ahimi is available in roughly 90 sushi/poke restaurants and grocery retailers (including Whole Foods) across the U.S.

Photo: Ocean Hugger Foods.

I got to sample sushi with ahimi a few months ago at the Alternative Protein Show in San Francisco. While it hit the same basic flavor notes as sushi — savory, clean, and just a tiny bit sweet — I wouldn’t say it would fool me into thinking it’s actually made of tuna. But compared to a bland California roll, ahimi sushi is light years more exciting.

Plant-based seafood innovation isn’t just happening on the raw side. Good Catch recently launched their plant-based tuna at Whole Foods, Sophie’s Kitchen has a canned “toona” made of konjac (the same ingredient in Ima), and New Wave Foods has a vegan shrimp product.

Of course, all these plant-based fish might become irrelevant once cultured seafood comes to market. Finless Foods has claimed it will start selling its cell-based bluefin tuna by the end of this year, and Wild Type is developing cultured salmon. On the crustacean front, Singapore-based startup Shiok Meats is about to have the first taste test of its cell-based shrimp.

But it’ll be a while before cultured fish hits the market and even longer before it’ll show up in our supermarket sushi. Until then, Ocean Hugger and Ima are smart to capitalize off of the booming plant-based food trend, especially in a space like sushi which currently has relatively few animal-free options. There are plenty of vegan burgers, sausages, and even canned fish (see above), but there hasn’t been a lot of innovation in making alternatives to raw fish.

Fair, it’s a lot harder to imitate the taste and texture of a slice of fatty raw tuna than a tin of cooked tuna fish. But early movers like Ocean Hugger and Ima have the chance to really get in on the ground floor stake a claim in what will likely be a booming market: plant-based fish.

If you get the chance to try ahimi or Ima’s new “salmon” sushi, give us a shout and let us know how you liked it!