Landlocked Switzerland Dives Into Alt-Seafood Market

6/14/2022 7:31:42 AM

(MENAFN- Swissinfo) Aqua Cultured Foods uses fermented fungi to make fish-free equivalents of tuna, whitefish, calamari, and shrimp. Image courtesy of Aqua Cultured Foods

As a diver, Brittany Chibe knows climate change and overfishing take a heavy toll on the ocean. Seeing the bleached corals of Australia's Great Barrier Reef on her first scuba dive seven years ago was a devastating experience.“It's something that weighed on my heart for a really long time,” says Chibe, a 35-year-old food-tech entrepreneur.“And I didn't know how I could, as one individual, make some change.”

This content was published on June 14, 2022 - 09:00 June 14, 2022 - 09:00 Dominique Soguel (text), Pauline Turuban (graphics)

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So when Anne Palermo, whom she had met at a networking event in Chicago years earlier, showed her photos of the spongy, seafood-like fungi that she had grown in her home kitchen in the summer of 2020, she recognized the potential and jumped at the chance to make a difference. Chibe partnered up with Palermo. Both women already had their own companies, but Chibe did not hesitate to sell hers to focus together on Aqua Cultured Foods. They incorporated the company in the United States in December 2020.

Their experiments in Chicago quickly gained attention in Switzerland. The company took part in a five-month accelerator programme at Big Ideas Venture in the United States in early 2021, which paved the way for $2.3 million in pre-seed funding; investors included Gonzalo Ramirez Martiarena, CEO of the Geneva-based Swiss Pampa. The company was then approached by Zurich's Kickstart Innovation programme and that culminated in a partnership with Migros, Switzerland's largest retailer.

“The Swiss have an interest in these alternative proteins,” says Chibe. As a next step she plans to assess consumer acceptance of her company's plant-based seafood alternatives in Switzerland.“It's a nice market to go test on a smaller scale, get feedback from consumers, and tweak the product as needed before launching throughout the rest of Europe.”

When it comes to food, Switzerland has a solid sense of adventure. Tradition made the country synonymous with cheese and chocolate, but it was also Europe's first to approve insect-derived products and punches above its weight on food science and technology innovation. Plant-based dairy and meat alternatives are already a hit with Swiss consumers. Food industry giant Nestlé and Migros are among many Swiss companies betting on animal-free food products that can credibly substitute seafood and fish. Overall, Switzerland is as an ideal testing ground for consumer interest and sales. Novel food market regulations are looser than in the European Union and the population is increasingly aware of the environmental impact of its consumption habits.

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