Vegan Shrimp to Hit Shelves Next Month

Vegan company New Wave Foods will launch its plant-based shrimp products in April. Founders Dominique Barnes and Michelle Wolf said the launch comes “much earlier than we’d initially expected,” due to overwhelming market interest. The duo joined IndieBio—a Silicon Valley-based technology accelerator program—in 2015 with the goal of disrupting the seafood industry, and not the ocean. Wolf and Barnes developed their prototypes—a popcorn shrimp (PopShrimp) and an unbreaded, cooked shrimp made with soy protein and red algae —in an effort to create truly sustainable seafood. New Wave’s initial shrimp product found early support in 2016 when Google began serving the vegan product in lieu of animals at its headquarters in Mountain View, CA. Recently, New Wave was named as the only seafood finalist—amongst 1,200 entrants in 12 categories—in media outlet Fast Company’s first-ever World-Changing Ideas competition. “This recognition by Fast Company reflects what has been the most significant marketplace interest I’ve seen in any product I’ve launched in my 20-year career,” New Wave’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing Xander Shapiro said. In addition to its premier two shrimp products, New Wave is currently developing alternatives for other seafood products.