Another thing that we do is we, always say, you know, we are not making a tuna for, for vegans. That's very important we're making tuna for people who love tuna. And, our sandwich should satisfy anyone who's just looking for a delicious lunch. And that sets the framework for our product development
Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening wherever you are in the world. This is the Climate 21 podcast, the number one podcast, showcasing best practices in climate emissions reductions, and I'm your host global vice president for SAP, Tom Raftery. Climate 21 is the name of an initiative by SAP to allow our customers calculate, report, and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
In this Climate 21 podcast, I will showcase best practices and thought leadership by SAP, by our customers, by our partners and, by our competitors, if they're game, in climate emissions reductions. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast in your podcast app of choice, to be sure you don't miss any episodes. Hi everyone. Welcome to the climate 21 podcast. My name is Tom Raftery with SAP and with me on the show today, I have my special guests Jacob. Jacob, welcome to the podcast.
Would you like to introduce yourself?
Yes. thanks for having me. Um, I am the co-founder. So one of the founders of Better Fish and Ocean Fruit. Two brands that are developing delicious uh, food's based on seaweeds. And what we do is we build new products, new supply chains with plants, from the oceans, many cases to replace animals from the oceans based on this, very exciting, plants. And my co-founder Dennis. She's not with me here today, but, course I want to mention her as well.
Okay. Super, super. And Jacob, why, why, why are you doing this? What's the reasoning behind your, brands?
Yeah. So, um, as a company, um, we started with a fascination for seaweeds. So for plants that can be cultivated in salt water in the oceans. Just because on, on, first of all, before we really got into the material, just on paper, it looked like the golden bullet, you know, the solution for so many problems. And there are plans that you can cultivate without any soil, without any fresh water, without the input of fertilizers. Um, just in the ocean and 71% of this planet are covered by oceans.
So, um, yeah, it was just the last question was why are we not doing this here? Especially in Europe or in north America? And, um, yeah, we went out and traveled and met a lot of, pioneers here in Europe who are already calculating seaweeds and. I also saw the larger industries existing in east Asia, which was very impressive. And then, yeah, during that journey, another aspect was added to this whole list of positive impacts. And that is that, fishing communities.
People who depend on the oceans for the livelihood. Uh, that's, that's almost 800 million people worldwide who indirectly or directly depend on fishing. And they have the know how and the infrastructure to switch from fishing, or let's say salmon, farming, things like that to seaweed cultivation.
So, in the end we were seeing that there's really the opportunity to realize a win-win situation for the environment, for people and in the end, also for new economies, you know, that that are regenerative. Basically we then set our goal to help build this new, uh, regenerative, maritime, industry. And, uh, as I said to some people already cultivated seaweed in Europe, but the problem was really the demand. Nobody wanted to eat these plants.
Yeah.
So all the sustainability buzzwords, don't help, if nobody buys your products. And then obviously these farms also don't grow. So we said, right, we have to actually develop the supply chains. We have to create products that people love and consume on a daily basis. And we have to make it somehow accessible and, and delicious for, uh, other culinary contexts outside east Asia, because we also have different species here that we are cultivating.
So we can't just do the same products and yeah, basically, that's the, that's what we're doing. And we have a organic brand, which makes seaweed popular the way it is. So not, it's not trying to be something else, you know, it's seaweed salads, it's for people early adopters in the organic shops who actually already are very fond of seaweeds and then we have a brand better fish. And that is actually, mimicking seafood, with these plants, from the oceans.
And that's something that we've discovered along the way that, obviously, I mean now afterwards, it's very obvious, but we are, we are the first ones doing this so you need plants from the oceans to recreate these animals from the oceans, because these plants are so rich in nutrients that you would only get from seafood.
And they also bring flavours and textures and a lot of opportunities to, for example, build a vegan salmon or a vegan and the tuna, our first animal that we successfully, managed to create with seaweed.
Ah, interesting. Interesting, because seaweed, at least I I'm originally from Ireland and communities in the west of Ireland for generations used to harvest seaweed, but rarely for food. More so for a form of fertilizer for fertilizing, the land in the west of Ireland is quite poor, so this was a cheap way of getting fertilizer to fertilize land. There was, there is one species of seaweed which has been used as a source of food. It's called a carrageen Moss, but not widely utilized.
Why have we not up until now really, exploited seaweed as a source of food?
Yeah. I mean good, for us, as, as you mentioned, that that coastal communities in Europe have always had or the other use for seaweed. And that's good because this way. Uh, this is for example, not a novel food, which is, uh, you know, in the, in the terms of like food regulation. It's very hard to introduce something that nobody has ever eaten before. And it's a very long, uh, regulatory
process.
it's a terrible process. And in this case, you know, we can always argument that some Celtic people somewhere have eaten this before. So some, some tribes, um, actually a lot of our seaweed would also comes from Ireland. Part of our team is there right now. Because the harvest season is going on and some of other, uh, some other seaweeds, we cultivate in Norway now with a partner there.
yeah, and basically the, I think the seaweed always had a bad reputation, um, when it comes to eating it fully because it was this kind of poor people's food in a way maybe. I think it was in Norway where they even have a term of dying with seaweed in your mouth for a term of like, if you're very, very desperate and poor and, um, it's, it's not been attractive. And it's, I think one of these things where we actually have to add a lot of processes to it, so, and that has to develop.
If you look at, coffee or chocolates, if you have a raw coffee cherry, or you have a chocolate fruit, a cocoa fruit, you know, you, you have to come with a lot of different processes to end up with, you know, some of the most popular agricultural products in the world. So if we, if you just pick a seaweed and eat it, it won't be terrible, but it also won't really excite you, you know? So you, you need to find ways to make this delicious and you have to put some effort in it.
And I guess it has always been easier to just catch fish and seafood and eat that instead, instead of really putting a lot of effort into these plants and learning how to cultivate them and even, even in Asia, the seaweed industry, when it comes to cultivation is pretty young. So they know how to cultivate seaweed since only 50 years.
Wow. Okay.
that, um, it has been mostly, wild harvested, but that obviously has a limit. And, um, yeah, you mentioned carrageenan or there's also other binders that are already used in the food industry and in cosmetics and so. on. And they are made from extracts from, from seaweed. But this has always been, mostly wild harvested seaweed and, yeah, w we are aiming to cultivate certain species and to have a regenerative impact with this form of cultivation and eating it, but we have to, yeah.
You know, we have to make it attractive and it's delicious. And apparently nobody had managed that before. Yeah.
And, and If you were going for cultivated, seaweeds, will that, will that will the cultivation of the seaweed will it help local biodiversity will it be like agriculture on land here is very obvious, very often monoculture, which reduces bio-diversity.
Yeah. So, I mean, it's a, it's a very young industry right now. So there's not too much specific research yet around it, but you can see, or you have first results where you can find that around seaweed farms. If seaweed is cultivated in the oceans, the bio-data biodiversity increases in these areas. That's one of many regenerative impacts that, uh, if you cultivate seaweed, it's kind of like. Almost like a reforestation.
So you have a temporary, you have kind of a floating ecosystem there where, you know, smaller fish school it's and other organisms can, can hide. And, um, obviously, you know, fishing, uh, cannot happen in the seaweed farm, so it's . It's giving a break to the And it's yeah, it's, it's increasing biodiversity. That's our goal. And we are, cultivating local species.
So this is, something that would grow in the same way in the wild, but sadly in many areas, there's a loss in a natural and wild, seaweed, forests. So yeah, this, seaweed cultivation as well as the protection these natural seaweed forests is important to increase biodiversity and kind of rebuild fish stocks and so on.
Okay. And what's what's causing the natural loss of the seaweeds. Is it pollution? Is it just mankind's encroachment? What is it?,
Yeah. I mean, it's, it's many, sometimes very complex, things that we do through the maritime ecosystems. In some ecosystems through fishing and disruption of the, the natural habitat, you lose a certain species or you, you, kind of push away certain species and then the seaweed forest loses its balance and you have other species kind of eating up those ecosystems. For example, you lose certain larger, you know, up in the food chain, uh, animals. Yeah, Keystone Keystone species.
And then, for example, sea urchins start eating up the forest because nobody eats them anymore. That's something that happens and obviously, fishing and trawling and all these things destroy ecosystems as well. And then there's obviously climate change, which changes ecosystems and acidification. So yeah, it's, it's not looking pretty when it comes to our oceans, we really have to do something to, to make it better.
And to cultivate seaweed, I mean, you mentioned sea urchins eat the seaweeds and destroy them. Do you have pests like that, that you have to deal with then? What are the challenges you face in cultivating seaweed?
Yeah. Yeah. So this is actually one thing that really is, for example, in Nordics and Norway, the window of the cultivation is really set by at what point, these, all these microorganisms and, you know, biofouling you call it, when do they all start getting really active? That's you have to have this before that.
So it kind of limits the growth of the seaweed farm but it's, it can be, can be arranged just with a temperature because these organisms just start coming up as soon as there's more sun more temperature, have to harvest right now, and you have a growing window from kind of January to now, and then you harvest before, these organisms get too active and kind of start eating up your harvest. And that's the way it works right now.
Yeah. just like with agriculture, you know, you have obviously, always so many different, things happening and things you have to learn, and that's always hard in the beginning if you've never done it and in Europe, right now, we can cultivate only four seaweed species. Maybe some more are, are, are on the, you know, in, in projects and, you know, in experiments.
But if you would put that into perspective with land crops, you know, this is are living in Stone Age., We only know how to cultivate four things and yet, you know, such a large part of our planet's covered by ocean. So there's a really, a huge opportunity here when it comes to the future of food and new things that we can do in the future.
Okay. And talk to me then about better fish, because, we've talked a little bit about where you're sourcing the seaweed far better fish, but we haven't talked about the products themselves. So you've you've just mentioned them in passing. Tell me a little bit more about them. They're a seafood substitute or they're a fish substitute is probably a more accurate way of putting it.
I had a recent episode with a company called rebellious foods where they're making a chicken meat substitute using plants. So this sounds like something very similar, except it's in the seafood space as opposed to the chicken space.
Yeah. Yeah, Yeah. exactly. I mean, it's our first species is tuna that we are replacing. it's one of these key species in the oceans.
Yeah,
It's a heavily overfished everywhere and it's eaten everywhere because we've made it so. The sad thing about the tuna is that we made it so easy to consume it. All over the world, you just open a, can you put it on your sandwich or whatever, you know, it's so convenient and so easy. And that's why we kind of, we are killing these beautiful fish, which are, if you look at the food web, they're almost like the tigers of the ocean. And then we put it in.
as well.
So we take these tigers and we put them in a can looking like cat food and, and that's, that's really sad. And 80% of all tuna ends up in cans, 80% of all tuna caught. And for us, it was clear that this is a great opportunity to start with replacing fish because the can or on your sandwich, on your pizza, tuna pizza is very popular in central Europe. I don't know as popular somewhere, um, you know, in, in, in all of these products, it doesn't look like a fish anymore, right?
It's just, it's not really distinguishable and it's not like we have to copy an entire beautiful tuna. We just have to make something that works the same way in the sandwich on the pizza, on your salad, in all these applications in the can. And then, you know, people are very, will be very happy to shift because the sad story of the tuna, you know, everybody knows it by now. And most people buy it with a, you know, kind of a bad, feeling. And now we can offer, you know, beautiful.
We started with a lot of convenience products to make it easier. So we have ready to eat sandwiches in the supermarkets, you know, the, triangle sandwich that you would grab on your lunch break, if you're, um busy, and we have frozen pizzas for that. We have a lot of food service projects, where, you know, restaurants and gastronomy partners want to also replace tuna with our product. And, that's what we're starting with.
And then in the pipeline, we have other, fish species and seafood products that we want to work with next.
Okay. And are you making the actual sandwiches themselves or are you making the tuna substitute ingredient for the sandwich and selling that to the sandwich makers? Or is it a combination?
Yeah. So, we are only doing research and development. So we have a team of 10 scientists and food technologists and, culinary experts, chefs, uh, you know, who all work together very well and develop these products and, explore seaweed for us. And then, we kind of develop our own ingredients.
So the seaweed that we use, the seaweed mixes, the processing that happens before with the seaweed, we kind of, we have developed and set up, you know, ingredients and seaweed mixes, and so on that you cannot buy off the shelf. So this is, this is kind of where on one end developing our own ingredients. Same with protein.
We are working with, organic fava bean protein that we have developed together with the cooperative who owns the whole, fava bean supply chain from cultivation to protein extraction to extrusion. So we develop these ingredients and we have to, because nobody has done a good tuna replacement before. So, that was up to us. And then we have large scale partners who, produce this at scale very fast.
So we don't own any of these factories, which helped us to grow much faster than if you would have of course, much more efficient, much cheaper than if you have to build your own factory. And, um, so one place where they create this, whole tuna. And then, we work with a large sandwich factory, with a large pizza factory and they just use it as ingredients.
Okay. what was most challenging? Is it getting the flavor right? Or the texture, right. Or both or something else?
Yeah. I mean, it was, everything was, uh, yeah, it's always very exciting. And there's a lot of challenges. I mean, one of the most obvious things you could, imagine is that what happens if you use a seaweed? Is that our first, tuna products were green and this is something you obviously don't want. And, you know, like, like when you're working with paint, you know, the more colors you add, the more you are going into some kind of dark
Yeah.
area. So, Yeah. that's, that's something, but in general, we've said for us to understand our development, like a clear frame and goals that we want to achieve with our products and they guide us through our development. So we have a set of rules and things that we want to achieve. And this, for example, that we don't want to work with soy and there should not be, let's say the gluten in the product, no added sugars, uh, no artificial colors, no artificial flavors.
And, um, you know, if you already cross all that out, you kind of focus on certain things that you can do and that can help, uh, and that can create an outstanding product. Another thing that we do is we, we always say, you know, we are not making a tuna for, for vegans. That's very important where we're making tuna for people who love tuna. And, our sandwich should satisfy anyone who's just looking for a delicious lunch and that sets the framework for our product development.
But it also makes it more difficult. So,
Hm.
when it comes to colors, for example, then we have a certain range of, organic kind of vegetable products that we can use to, impact the color. but yeah, in the end it worked and it was worth taking the effort.
Okay, nice. If I had a better fish tuna sandwich in one hand and a tuna tuna fish sandwich in my other hand, and I took a bite out of each. Would I be able to tell the difference?
Yeah. I mean, that's the goal that you can't tell the difference. Uh, you should not notice the difference now. I don't know what kind of a tuna expert you are. So if you are, if you are really, really into it, I mean, I'm sure there are people who can tell the difference. There are people who say that ours is better than the, the actual tuna. I mean, that's our upside, you know, our tuna can always get better. Tuna that's just tuna can't do much about it.
And tuna comes in so many, so the real tuna, you know, it comes in so many colors and shapes and formats. So it's always, also, always looking a little bit different, but our end goal is to be on one level with tuna, when it comes to the whole taste flavor, texture experience, you shouldn't notice the difference, but also when it comes through the nutritional profile and nutritional benefits, I mean, there's reasons why
tuna is so popular, you know, . And we want to reach those same benefits or even go beyond those with our product and price, of course is a big thing with tuna. And, uh, we are always striving to reach price parity so that you cannot only taste no difference, but will also pay the same
Yeah. Yeah, that was actually going to be my next question is price, from what you're saying there, it sounds like at the moment you haven't hit price parity yet, but obviously that's something that's on your roadmap.
I mean, one thing, in this context of plant-based meats and plant-based foods and vegan, eating and price parity is that people forget that the end price is not in our hands. So it's not an engineering question only how much does a product in the supermarket cost and if some supermarkets believe that, you know, they can charge extra for vegan products because that is an audience that pays extra, then I can't do anything about it. And actually I will get penalties and fines.
If I discuss prices too much with the supermarket, there's like all these rules in place. So, it's not in my hands. And the problem right now in some supermarkets is that they do that. They think, okay, These are people who are willing to pay more, but then that's a self fulfilling prophecy, right? Because then you will end up, uh, of course the only people who can pay more buy it and then it stays that way.
That's a problem that we have seen many times, you know, and the whole trading structure has a big impact. So if we trade with someone who has a very centralized efficient system, then the sandwich in the shop will be very cheap and almost in price parity. So it depends where you buy it. Sometimes we can reach already the price of any other sandwich, our sandwiches in Germany, they cost 2 49 euros, for ready to eat sandwich.
If in the supermarket, of course, if you buy it in a gas station, trainstation, I mean, you know how it is in a way it costs more, but there, everything is customer as well.
Okay. Okay. Cool. And that's tuna. Have you plans for other fish, other seafood?
Yeah. So actually, if you look at our product innovation pipeline, there's kind of these, these things on the surface that you as a consumer can see. So there's the two, the tuner product, and then this whole range of like sandwiches and next class really important that we're trying to nail right now is to have a more chunky more feely-like structure in the can and the whole canning industrial canning process.
You know, we are trying to crack that for, for a plant-based product, which is not easy, because with meat products and fish products in cans, they go in there raw or half cooked, and then they, the canning is kind of a way to actually reach the flavors and the textures that you want reach. In our case, we cannot mimic a ripening and, and cooking process with our tuna.
So the challenge is to really find the right technologies and make a canned product that tastes the way that we want to and, and use the existing industry for it. So we will work with the large fish canning company, just because it's exciting for them. And we want to take them on board and obviously they, they have the infrastructure, they are super efficient in what they do so we can learn a lot there. So the, tuna can, for example, it's one thing that we want to be really good at.
And then there's also Whitefish. So the kind of mass products like the, you know, fish filet or a fish and chips and the fish fingers all these applications, and then also the crustaceans, the shrimps. That's also a very interesting area for us, but to get there underneath, we need like this deep seaweed, know how and this innovation around these plants.
So we have to get much better at extracting and concentrating certain flavors, nutrients that we want, while keeping out other nutrients that we don't want as much or that we want to limit and to really increase our capabilities and our toolkits of using seaweed. So also adventure, adventure, and exploring in a new species, you know, all these things have to happen. so that the new products are possible.
And we also building like a, a database with every seaweed species that we discover explore, we kind of have to learn okay how, how does the taste if it's growing in that area as compared to, so how does it taste in Norway? How does it taste in Ireland? what age differences there? it's something that is very basic in the food industry. Like if you want to make coconut water, you, it makes a lot of coconuts from all over the world and, and, uh, you want to taste it the same.
Yeah.
that's w with this new plants we have to, we have to start from scratch this Yeah. A lot, a lot of work to be done.
Okay. Fascinating. Where can I buy better fish tuna?
Yeah, so right now, we're we are available in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Denmark. The UK, and the Netherlands are really high on our list, so we hope to be available there as well. And we are available in different supermarkets, depending on where you are.
Okay. So not in Spain anytime soon unfortunately.
not yet, but we've had that. We should really, so many people have told us we should really go there
Is a big tuna market here.
exactly, exactly.
Okay. Okay. Fantastic. We are coming towards the end of the podcast now, Jacob, is there any question I haven't asked that you think I should have, or any aspect of this, we've not touched on that you think it's important for people to be aware of?
No, I think I already talked too much. So I think I managed to get, you know, to on my, to put all my points across.
Okay, fantastic. Jacob, if people wanted to know more about yourself or about better fish or any of the things we discussed in the podcast today. Where would you have me direct them?
Yeah. So if you just want to learn more than you should check out our new website. Uh, and I was sent the links to you and you can share them and then you can find us also on, on most of the social media platforms, depending, on what you're preferring. So, uh, in the professional context, maybe on LinkedIn or on Instagram or Facebook, uh, yeah.
Perfect. Fantastic. Send me all those links. I'll put them in the show notes that's great. Jacob, that's been really interesting. Thanks a million for coming on the podcast today.
Yeah. Thank you so much.
Okay, we've come to the end of the show. Thanks everyone for listening. If you'd like to know more about Climate 21, feel free to drop me an email to Tom dot Raftery @ sap.com or connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter. If you liked the show, please don't forget to subscribe to it in your podcast application of choice to get new episodes as soon as they're published. Also, please don't forget to rate and review the podcast. It really does help new people to find the show.
Thanks catch you all next time.