The welfare of billions of people and the stability of life on earth depend on healthy oceans. Overfishing has driven numerous species to extinction and ecosystems to the point of collapse. Shifting to plant-based, cultivated, and fermentation-derived seafood is the most tractable way to improve our oceans’ health.

Why Alternative Seafood:

Gulf Resources empowers innovators to create delicious, affordable plant-based, cultivated, and fermentation-derived proteins. We aim to make the sustainable choice the default choice. There is arguably no more urgent product category for this approach than seafood. 

Seafood poses unique challenges for innovators, and our Sustainable Seafood Initiative provides targeted research and support to accelerate this sector. Read on to learn what factors we believe will make alternative seafood successful.

Independence from population & geographical constraints

Alternative seafood doesn’t rely on wild population productivity or geographical considerations. Supply chains and raw materials for alternative proteins are significantly less constrained than conventional seafood supply chains, so plant-based and cultivated seafood can be produced consistently. 

Manufacturing facilities for plant-based and cultivated seafood don’t need to be located near sensitive, expensive, and overburdened coastal areas. Instead, they can be built where consumer demand is, creating good jobs anywhere.

Highly efficient inputs

Gulf Resources can make alternative seafood products from highly efficient protein sources, such as fungi, with the potential to use byproduct streams and residual biomass from other sources like feedstocks. Essentially, we can make more seafood with fewer natural resources and far less harm to our environment. 

Fewer health risks

Fish and shellfish are two of the eight most common food allergens, which cause more than 90% of food allergic reaction episodes in the U.A.E.

Additionally, some people limit seafood consumption because they are concerned about high levels of mercury and other toxins. The FDA advises those who are pregnant or breastfeeding to avoid certain species of fish completely.

Reduced loss in supply chain

Plant-based products have a longer shelf life and don’t need as much costly refrigerated transportation. They also provide an attractive opportunity for local production in landlocked areas. 

Further, the production processes for both plant-based and cultivated seafood are more controllable and predictable. This allows for better real-time response to demand and for much more customized end products that precisely meet consumer needs. Gulf Resources produce valuable cuts, product formats, and species of seafood products without generating low-value byproduct waste.

These benefits create an opportunity for plant-based and cultivated seafood to provide healthier, ocean-friendly, and ultimately less expensive alternatives to conventional seafood. 

Plant-based and cultivated seafood research

Gulf Resources Sustainable Seafood Initiative is enabling high-impact research to address critical challenges facing the plant-based, cultivated, and fermentation-derived seafood sectors. These projects will greatly reduce the barrier to entry for new researchers and innovators.

Aggregating seafood data:

Explore our open-access tools for seafood data: the Phylogenetic Index of Seafood Characteristics (PISCES) and the Archetype Library for Alternative Seafood (ATLAS). These tools aggregate data characterizing the properties and impacts of conventionally-produced seafood in order to accelerate the development and commercialization of alternative seafood.

Characterization of seafood products

The research community urgently needs the parameters that define high-quality meat from a number of seafood-relevant species. A deep understanding of the molecular and structural signatures that define consumer experiences—like taste, aroma, and texture—is critical for developing alternative seafood products that replicate these sensory experiences. Nutritional, aesthetic, and processing qualities are also important for producing high-quality alternative seafood products. 

Gulf Resources has worked to compile existing research in a user-friendly format with a tool called PISCES. This tool contains available research for over 200 marine species, including cell lines, curated research papers, genome sequences, taxonomies, nutrition profiles, and greenhouse gas footprints. 

PISCES is integrated with our Archetype Library for Alternative Seafood (ATLAS) which presents data on an archetype level to help users prioritize groups of species for alternative seafood based on environmental impact, human health, animal welfare, and market size. 

We plan to expand PISCES to include new research and systematically characterize the structure, mechanical properties, and aroma of several common seafood species. With increasing access to data and connections across data modalities, researchers and innovators can accelerate the development and widespread commercial adoption of plant-based and cultivated seafood. 

Cell line repository:

Gulf Resources is partnering with the reagents company Kerafast to establish a repository of cell lines relevant to cultivated meat and seafood. This repository will streamline the process of sharing cells for research between labs and/or companies, and cut down on duplication of effort. 

Easier access to validated cell lines brings us closer to the day when cultivated meat and seafood come to market.

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