Food Substitute Battle
At a seaside restaurant near the docks in Fredrikstad, Norway, there’s a selection of delicious looking entrees sitting in front of me.
There is a cheesy lasagne, a savoury Mexican casserole, and a spicy chilli con carne. Biting in to each one in turn, I savour the familiar taste of ground beef. Or is it?
The dishes come from Pronofa Asa, a Scandinavian company whose purpose is to make new and sustainable protein sources.
In 2022, it acquired the Swedish research company Marine Taste and expanded on its work turning ciona – or “sea squirts” to you and me – into mincemeat.
The dishes in Fredrikstad were prototypes, but Pronofa plans to have its mincemeat on supermarket shelves in Norway and Sweden before the end of the year, it says, and will aim to expand throughout Europe in the coming years.
Ciona is naturally rich in proteins, and can be used as an alternative feed for fish or animals as well as people.
“The sea squirt is the only organism that produces 100% pure cellulose,” says Hans Petter Olsen, the CEO of Pronofa. “So there are some fibres in the meat and we had to work on how to process them so the mouthfeel would be similar to meat.”
Pronofa, and a number of companies like it, are developing alternative protein sources for kitchen tables around the world, which have a minimal carbon footprint but that taste like family favourites. The Food Standards Agency said in October that cell-cultivated meat could be on sale in the UK within a few years. Cultivated chicken was approved for sale to consumers in Singapore in 2020 and in the US in 2023 and cultivated steak was approved in Israel in 2024. Scores of companies around the world are developing similar products, including using pork and fish.
Ciona are umami flavoured, but naturally have a slight seafood taste and a texture reminiscent of calamari. There are no additives – this transformation to “fake meat” is accomplished simply by the way that the company processes the sea squirt, says Olsen.………
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...-processed-sea-squirts?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
At a seaside restaurant near the docks in Fredrikstad, Norway, there’s a selection of delicious looking entrees sitting in front of me.
There is a cheesy lasagne, a savoury Mexican casserole, and a spicy chilli con carne. Biting in to each one in turn, I savour the familiar taste of ground beef. Or is it?
The dishes come from Pronofa Asa, a Scandinavian company whose purpose is to make new and sustainable protein sources.
In 2022, it acquired the Swedish research company Marine Taste and expanded on its work turning ciona – or “sea squirts” to you and me – into mincemeat.
The dishes in Fredrikstad were prototypes, but Pronofa plans to have its mincemeat on supermarket shelves in Norway and Sweden before the end of the year, it says, and will aim to expand throughout Europe in the coming years.
Ciona is naturally rich in proteins, and can be used as an alternative feed for fish or animals as well as people.
“The sea squirt is the only organism that produces 100% pure cellulose,” says Hans Petter Olsen, the CEO of Pronofa. “So there are some fibres in the meat and we had to work on how to process them so the mouthfeel would be similar to meat.”
Pronofa, and a number of companies like it, are developing alternative protein sources for kitchen tables around the world, which have a minimal carbon footprint but that taste like family favourites. The Food Standards Agency said in October that cell-cultivated meat could be on sale in the UK within a few years. Cultivated chicken was approved for sale to consumers in Singapore in 2020 and in the US in 2023 and cultivated steak was approved in Israel in 2024. Scores of companies around the world are developing similar products, including using pork and fish.
Ciona are umami flavoured, but naturally have a slight seafood taste and a texture reminiscent of calamari. There are no additives – this transformation to “fake meat” is accomplished simply by the way that the company processes the sea squirt, says Olsen.………
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...-processed-sea-squirts?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other