On March 20th, Fast Company named New Wave Foods’s PopShrimpTM a finalist in its first-ever World Changing Ideas competition. PopShrimpTM, which is algae-based, vegan, and kosher, is among several finalists across 12 categories, including Food, Transportation, Health, Energy, Urban Design, and others. Fast Company received more than 1,200 entries in total. PopShrimpTM was the sole seafood finalist.

Realizing the devastation commercial fishing wreaks on humans, ocean ecosystems, and our climate, Dominique Barnes and Michelle Wolf launched New Wave Foods less than two years ago. With the goal of disrupting seafood, not oceans, and creating delicious seafood from seaweed, they developed a plant- and algae-based shrimp at IndieBio, a premiere biotech accelerator based in San Francisco. Since graduating from IndieBio, Barnes, CEO, and Wolf, CTO, have been working to perfect their shrimp, both in breaded and unbreaded prototypes. They are also developing alternatives for other popular seafood products.

“Since October 2015, we’ve been working day and night to make a delicious algae-based shrimp, which everyone can love, available as soon as possible,” said Barnes. “We’re excited to announce that not only we will be bringing a Panko-breaded shrimp to market soon, but also an unbreaded, cooked shrimp. This is much earlier than we’d initially expected, but the widespread market interest has really motivated us to innovate rapidly."

Xander Shapiro, New Wave Foods’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing, added, “This recognition by Fast Company reflects what has been the most significant marketplace interest I’ve seen in any product I’ve launched in my 20-year career. We’re honored to have been named a finalist and so excited to deliver our first products to the marketplace next month.”

New Wave Foods’s plant-based shrimp will be available starting this spring.