Vegan shrimp swims into Monterey Bay Aquarium
Shrimp is the most widely consumed seafood in America.
But the Center for American Progress, a public policy and research institution, found the majority of shrimp consumed in the U.S. is associated with human trafficking.
Looking for a sustainable alternative, the Monterey Bay Aquarium is swapping real shrimp for an algae and plant-based alternative.
Dominique Barnes is the CEO of New Wave Foods. She said problems in the shrimp supply chain inspired her to start the company. Those issues include slavery, the use of antibiotics and environmental concerns.
“Shrimp can be or (has) the highest bycatch ratio of any wild caught seafood items. So for every body of shrimp that comes up you can get up to 5 or 6 pounds of other animals that often get discarded overboard,” Barnes said.
When Barnes approached the Monterey Bay Aquarium with her product, she was welcomed with open arms.
The aquarium has a Seafood Watch List, which tracks the health of ocean life and educates consumers about where their food is coming from.
Now, the list is no longer limited to meaty aquatic life and neither is the menu at the aquarium’s restaurant.
“If all we are focusing on is seafood, we are going to deplete our resources. And so when you start to focus on sustainability as a whole, as the world ocean as a whole, you know and that starts to include things like plankton, and kelp and all these other things, and that’s where you get products like this,” said executive chef Matthew Beaudin.
