Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat Made Fake Burgers Cool. These Startups Want to Do the Same for Fake Fish

Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat Made Fake Burgers Cool. These Startups Want to Do the Same for Fake Fish

Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat Made Fake Burgers Cool. These Startups Want to Do the Same for Fake Fish

Meet the leading alternative seafood brands riding the plant-based food wave.

By Mary Yang @maryranyang

Courtesy Good Catch

Thanks largely to hot companies like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat , fake burgers are cool--and ubiquitous. A new crop of startups is aiming to give plant-based fish the same treatment. 

According to recent data from

Good Food Institute , a D.C.-based alternative protein research nonprofit, the U.S. plant-based foods market generated $7 billion in retail sales in 2020, growing nearly twice as fast as total food sales. Plant-based meat, a $1.4 billion category, grew by 45 percent in 2020--three times as fast as its animal-based counterpart. 

While plant-based seafood made up just one percent of all plant-based meat sales last year, brands and investors are eager to crack the "white space," says Jen Lamy, senior manager of Good Food Institute's Sustainable Seafood Initiative.

Food and agriculture giant Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) was the lead investor in plant-based seafood maker Gathered Foods' latest funding round. In April, the company secured more than $26 million to expand its Good Catch lines of shelf-stable tuna and frozen appetizers and entrees in the U.S. and in Europe. Meat giant Tyson Foods, through its subsidiary