Biotech startup New Wave Foods is selling “prawns” made from algae and plant ingredients, says The Guardian. “We’ve done a few blind taste tests—unofficially, you know—and until we tell people it’s made of plants and algae they can’t tell,” says the company’s CEO, Dominique Barnes, who has a background in marine conservation. Even the executive chef at Google was so impressed when he tried the product that he ordered 200 pounds.
The fake prawns get their rosy color from red algae, but the exact method behind their texture and flavor is proprietary. U.S. shoppers can expect to see the first algae-based prawns next year, breaded like “popcorn shrimp.”
New Wave Foods launched in 2015, determined to try to save sharks by creating faux shark fin out of genetically modified yeast. Since then, the group has pivoted to the most popular seafood in the U.S., with per-capita consumption of shrimp coming in at an average of four pounds a year. Barnes hopes that the algae prawns can help curb some of the abuses of the industry, including enormous bycatch from fine-mesh nets and the destruction of mangrove forests to make way for prawn farms. The industry has also been caught forcing workers in Asia to toil on boats and farms under brutal conditions that amount to a form of slavery.