Is fake shrimp the next big seafood invention?

Americans consume about four billion pounds of seafood annually, and about a quarter of that is shrimp, says Popular Science. And while shrimp are nutritious, besides being delicious, fishing for wild shrimp leaves a carbon footprint that is 10 times higher than that of beef.

But even worse is the amount of corruption behind the harvest of shrimp. Most of our shrimp are brought in from Thailand, and according to an Associated Press investigation, consumers in the U.S. and across Europe eat shrimp peeled by slaves.

Shrimp from these facilities, actually large warehouses where migrant workers are kept and forced to peel shrimp for hours on end for little or no pay, are exported to the U.S. where they end up in the supply chain, going to retailers like Whole Foods, Wal-Mart, Red Lobster, and Olive Garden.

This Michigan Salad with grilled shrimp looks mighty good, but how many people were beaten, abused or even killed so you can enjoy this?

Steven Depolo

We also need to add the shopper to the mix. We want our peeled shrimp ready to stir-fry when we go to the market, and we are a demanding group. Enter Dominique Barnes, who studied marine conservation at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and Michelle Wolf, a materials scientist. About one year ago, they created New Wave Foods.

The San Francisco, California company plans to release a “popcorn shrimp” product that is entirely man-made within the next eight months, according to a report in The Atlantic. Barnes told the Atlantic that the faux shrimp are made out of red algae and plant proteins, sort of like “baking a loaf of bread.”

Barnes points out that red algae is one of the foods eaten by shrimp in the wild and it gives them their natural color and distinct taste. “We analyzed shrimp on a molecular level to figure out the components,” she said. Ultimately, what they came up with has a very similar texture, taste, color, and nutritional value, just like the real thing.

Barnes told Tech Insider that the shrimp they are making has the same high protein and low-fat content of real shrimp, a big difference compared with other shrimp substitutes.

The company’s first product will be breaded shrimp, and they already have a 200-pound order from Google. The company is trying to cut down on using real shrimp in their cafeterias. But New Wave Foods is also working on the next addition to their product line, a naked shrimp that can be used in shrimp cocktails. The future is ripe for branching out into other seafood products.